The Vampire Detective
by LeonaWriter
Summary: There is always only one truth. But then the one who's trying to find that truth suddenly starts to challenge it by simply existing. Which means attention. And when you can't be hurt, some will go for the next best thing... Not AU. Not a crossover. Fini.
1. The Case

**The Vampire Detective**

**Chapter One – The Case**

I don't even own my ideas. They all come from Gosho Aoyama and Ellen Brand.

_May you live in interesting times – Anon_

"Ran-neechan! Ran-neechan!" Bright eyed, Edogawa Conan was jumping up and down like a march hare in order to get his 'neechan's' attention. "But I wanted to go, too! I'm not afraid!"

Well, it was hardly as though he hadn't already been to enough so-called spooky towns, villages, resorts and monasteries to rid him of the idea that there was ever a non-plausible truth behind any shady or 'haunted' places.

Ran put her hands on her hips and looked down at him in what he supposed to any real seven year old would seem an intimidating pose, but as he was Shinichi could tell that she was amused more than annoyed.

"Conan-kun, don't you have school during that time? The letter we got from Unobo-san said that we had to come as soon as possible, and didn't know how long we might need to be there. Since tomorrow's Monday, you might even have a whole _week_ off school!"

_Not that it'd do my grades any harm_, the not-boy thought to himself. _It'd probably do me more good than harm – I could get in some _real_ study if there are any breaks_.

"But neechan! Agasa-hakase could come too!" And if he did, he could smuggle something along with him- "And Haibara could come too, 'cos other than for school and Shonen Tantei, she's hardly been out at _all_ lately!" Well, it _was_ true. And even though she was the only one able to figure out a way to reverse the APTX, in Shinichi's eyes that also meant not obsessing. Sure, he wanted to be back to his old self already, but not at the cost of a friend, no matter how freaky Haibara could be sometimes. He put on his best and brightest and – he shivered inside – cutest grin, just for Ran. "_Please_, Ran-neechan?"

For what seemed like a small portion of forever, he waited, smile still on his face. Then it happened. Amused annoyance was slowly replaced with a sigh, and a long-suffering one at that. Yet within less than a heartbeat there was a smile on her face once again.

"All right. I'll ask dad for you. I can't promise you he'll agree, but if he does then we can talk to hakase and school about it then, ne?"

Conan nodded happily. That had been all he'd needed to hear. All of 'Sleeping Kogoro's' most famous cases had been solved when he had been around to use the tranquiliser watch and voice-changer bow tie. Even if the man was in fact rather inept as a detective, he did notice that his luck in solving crime always seemed to rise if Conan was there. So if Conan wanted to come, Conan would come. And if Shinichi wanted Agasa and Ai there as well, then it wouldn't be too hard at all to talk them round.

It was a done deal.

This time tomorrow, he would be in the small and sparsely populated town that the letter had specified. He just hoped that whatever tragedy the man had been warned about wasn't about to happen before he got there.

* * *

The car trip, like always, took ages. Conan sat patiently in the back, next to one window, with Ran on the other side. Agasa and Ai were in the professor's old beetle and he had caught the numerous glares the chemist had been sending him ever since she had found the professor agreeing with him, including one particularly nasty one once they were in the cars and Kogoro was overtaking to lead the way, as he was the only one with the address.

The drive was long. Like every time. And, like every time before, Conan had his face almost glued to the car window, hardly noticing the scenery and instead focusing on the case at hand. He didn't have all that much information, as the letter had only arrived the previous morning. Even then there hadn't been enough details. There had been an address, but no telephone number. The author had said that there was going to be some sort of tragedy, but hadn't specified what kind. The only thing they'd been specific at all about was that they wanted the famous Sleeping Detective Mori Kogoro to be there. Which told him that they either wanted a failure in their midst, meaning that they didn't in fact want the mystery to be solved at all but rather put down that it had been even if the conclusions were wrong, or they believed that Mori senior actually lived up to the reputation. It wasn't unheard of. There was, of course, a third option. Whoever they were . . . might or might not know who he was. Might or might not know exactly why the third rate detective had turned into a great detective almost overnight; the same night he had disappeared. . .

He was woken from his reverie when the car started to slow, turned a bend and parked. He unbuckled the seatbelt and hopped out, following Kogoro to where a man was standing outside a traditional-looking two storey house with a large porch and a balcony. He was wearing a long, dark mackintosh that reached nearly all the way down to the man's ankles. The collar was turned up so that it obscured most of his face and the man was wearing a hat of some kind, not to mention the glasses in the fading dusk, but Conan was used to strangeness in some of the people he ran into on an almost daily basis. Himself not being counted, thank you very much. In fact, it was just as often those who didn't seem to be unusual who ended up being the suspects.

So there he was, being led into a weird, out of the way hotel by a weird, out of the way kind of person. Not too out of the usual, he supposed.

As he trotted after them, Ran shivered, cold through her jacket. She'd obviously forgotten that summer nights tended to be cold when you weren't in the city.

"I'm sure it'll be much warmer when we get inside, Ran-neechan!"

Ran looked down at him and smiled, but before she could say anything, the voice of their client drifting back to them, an almost disembodied voice as he opened the door to the large house.

"I made sure that the heating was sufficient, in anticipation of your stay here the moment received my warning." The man's voice was odd – not only did the accent seem slightly off, but it seemed to be almost completely monotone, with no heed of emotion. Conan shivered. "We do have one other guest," he continued. "A man by the name of Sawada. Apparently, his car seemed to break down upon arriving. He will most likely be leaving some time tomorrow."

Conan filed the information away; seemingly harmless at that moment, even something as incongruous as a car breaking down in the right spot could be cause for concern. Which, he noted with due amusement, Kogoro had picked this up right at the same time, but instead of filing the information away quietly, he was doing his best to interrogate their client as to why the hell he'd let a potential suspect stay in the same house as him all the way into said house and even as they were shown where their rooms were. The miniature detective rolled his eyes when he was sure no one was looking, but was able to be less circumspect about the yawn that crept up on him.

The room that they had been given was on the second floor of the house, with a window onto the rest of the town, most of the other buildings not being as tall. Three futons lying neatly on one side of the room, two on the other. A screen was a visible partition between the boys and the girls, and without hardly thinking, he found himself falling asleep in the futon closest to the door, listening to the sound of Ran's breathing as she fell asleep across the room.

* * *

Shinichi was woken up by his sense of smell. By one particular smell.

He drank in the scent just as he had for the last year, and various times before that. He'd know it anywhere.

_Mmmm_... he thought. _Ran. Ran's cooking_. He could always tell whether or not it was her; usually because the only people in the house were her, him and the old man. _He_ obviously couldn't cook, as one had to be able to have a certain amount of height to achieve certain things safely. The old man was always a definite out-of-the-question – probably couldn't put an edible meal together to save his life any more than he could solve a case without clues hitting him hard enough to knock him out. _Plus_, he noticed as the first thoughts and deductions of the day flashed and skidded about his brain with the accompanying yawn, _Haibara and Ran are both up and about – the room partition's been slid back sometime ago – so I can say with at least a little certainty that they're together. Hakase's not here either, so he's probably with them_. Stretching, he smiled. _I just hope he doesn't try to help out_, he thought, imagining the kitchen going up in a boom and trying not to laugh as he reflexively sought out the glasses that made him into Conan.

He hesitated for a heartbeat, and Shinichi was gone. Replaced instead by his avatar, at that moment having a lot more in common with Clark Kent than Superman – or even Sherlock Holmes.

Letting his body go on a sort-of autopilot, he headed towards the kitchen, reflexively seeing and remembering things even if the rest of his brain was heading towards God's Gift to Mornings – a breakfast cooked by Ran and heavenly, _heavenly_ coffee. Of course, he knew that he probably wouldn't be able to get the latter unless he found some way of heavily bribing the professor, but it was always worth a try.

"'Morning, Ran-" _yawn_ "Ran-neechan. . ."

"Morning, Conan-kun. This should be ready to eat in a couple of minutes, so why don't you go into the other room? Ai-chan, could you go up and ask Sawada-san if he wants to come down? If not, we can always take something up for him."

Ai went off with a terse "Of course." She passed Conan on her way out, giving him another half-glare as she went. Hakase smiled apologetically down at him, but Conan just grumbled. The moment he'd set foot on the lower floor, there'd been a sort of shiver running straight down the back of his neck. Like someone was watching him somehow. He shook his head. Even if there was someone watching him, there was no way anyone could get away with anything right in front of Ran and the professor. Besides, the only other person within sight was Unobo-san in the adjoining room, and all of _his_ attention was solely focussed on the newspaper in front of his eyes.

Conan collapsed heavily onto the sofa opposite the man. Feet dangling slightly (ok, more than slightly), he scowled at the space in front of his nose. Nothing had happened so far. No tragedies. No deaths. No kidnappings. Nothing. It was enough to get his suspicions raised – though of what, he hadn't the foggiest clue, because all the evidence he had was a hunch and the fact that nothing had happened yet. Which was good, wasn't it?

_Hmph. Yeah, right. A bad feeling and no criminal evidence – way to go, Kudo._

He growled in frustration, catching Haibara as she came down the stairs and back into the kitchen.

"Sawada-san had something that he wished to work on up in his rooms." Haibara's cool voice carried easily through the window between the kitchen and the living-slash-dining room. "But he will accept something if it is taken up to him."

"Really? That's good – he can have something before he goes." There were sounds of plates and cutlery being gathered and, Conan suspected, the wooden thunk of a tray being set down.

"Here, Ran-chan, let me help with that."

"Oh, no. I can handle it. Thanks anyway, hakase."

"Quite out of the question." Conan jumped at the voice – he'd only heard it a couple of times before, but he was good at placing voices and that man had only just been _right ther_e in front of him. Only now, now he was in the kitchen, offering to bring Sawada-san's breakfast up. Conan jumped down from his perch and over to the inside window. Sure enough, there the man was, newspaper still in hand. "As my guests," he was saying, "I couldn't allow you to act like servants in my own home. I assure you," he added with a smile, "I can handle myself well enough for that."

Ran smiled and bowed and said thank you. She let the man take the tray. He went upstairs and a few minutes later, came back down, without the tray.

"Ran-neechan! Can we have breakfast now?"

Back in his seat in the other room, Conan's feet kicked playfully yet with inward frustration against the boards of the sofa.

"Hai! I'll be in there just a moment!" She hesitated for just long enough to yell up the stairs to her father in the hopes of getting him down that way instead of having to drag him down. Sure enough, just as she was starting to put full plates and dishes onto trays to carry in, the sounds of one detective waking grumpily up. Thuds and crashes permeated the air for a few minutes before footsteps could be heard going from the room they had been staying in to the stairs.

Then there was a shout. There was a racket of swearing and oaths, and Kogoro Mori stormed down the stairs with all the grace of a rhinoceros.

"Tou-san –"

"Dead – he's dead!"

"What?! Who?"

The majority of the five people getting started had long since dropped whatever they were holding and all of their attention was focused on the detective standing panting in the doorway.

"Sawada! Sawada-san! Blood! Everywhere!"

The reactions were instantaneous. Ran's hands went straight to her mouth, shocked and horrified as she always was when a murder happened under their noses. At one time Shinichi would have been confused or otherwise unable to understand her reaction; now, it was just one of the many things that he liked her all the more for. The professor seemed to pale slightly, clenching at something but otherwise taking it slightly better than Ran had. Haibara's eyes narrowed in a shared look. Unobo, of all of them, seemed to be taking it with the strangest reactions. Instead of dropping everything in shock, he had tightened his hold on the dining implements.

But any more than that, Conan didn't know, because he was already out of the room and running up the stairs, not paying any heed to the shouts that meant Ran would shortly be phoning the police or that Kogoro was interrogating the man who had seen the victim last – Unobo-san himself – or even that the man seemed to be _calm_ of all things, without so much as a raised voice. No, all of that could be taken into consideration later, when he had time to think. Right now, he had to deal with _this_ evidence at hand.

Sawada-san's room had been at the far end to the one that he and the others had been loaned use of – instead of being at the front of the house, looking onto the street and windows opening straight to a balcony that looked over the town. The victim had died in a room right at the back of the house, next to the stairs and right beside the balcony on the ether end, looking out over the garden.

The door was open, with blood on the doorknob and a trail of the stuff in what had started out as a horizontal line across from the hinges. It was still wet, but even from just a cursory glance, Conan could tell that they weren't going to find any fingerprints. The perpetrator had worn gloves, or used some other method of hiding the otherwise inevitable smoking guns, smearing the stains.

Yet despite that and what had been said previously, the violence seemed to have been restrained to a controlled fury. The tray with the still-warm breakfast untouched was on the table by the door. Sawada-san himself was sprawled out on the floor by the desk; it appeared that he had indeed been working on something before his untimely death. Avoiding the pooling blood, Conan danced and jumped his way over to the desk to see if he could find any clue whatsoever as to why this had happened. Had Sawada-san and Unobo-san been in contact before yesterday? Any mutual contacts? Had there been any threats towards Sawada-san himself, instead of just Unobo san? Anything. There _had_ to be a motive.

But there wasn't – just wasn't anything there. Sawada-san had been an accountant for a well-known bank, had been on his way to Tokyo to cover for someone else – a friend, it seemed, rather than just another colleague. He was going to attempt seeing if he could find anything even slightly more useful, but before he could he found himself being bodily lifted up and away, carried all the way out of the room and dumped into the hallway.

"_Oi! Occhan!"_

Kogoro Mori, however, didn't even notice his squawks of protest.

_Dammit_.

Carefully, Conan sidled back into the room, far enough in that he could hear the other detective's muttered deductions. His eyes widened in incredulity as he listened to point after ridiculous sounding point.

_You have _got_ to be _kidding_ me. Even a third-rate detective like him couldn't possibly be taking all this evidence at face value!_

_Hopefully_ he wasn't.

But then again . . . he himself had seen clearly just how much blood had been spilt. How pale the corpse had been even that short time after death. Who knew what assumptions someone would make when they found out that the only visible and new wounds sustained had been two puncture marks, neither too close nor too far away from each other?

Footsteps were approaching them just as he was attempting to tiptoe closer and see for himself.

"Tou-san, I've called the police. They should be here in a while – Maa, Conan-kun!"

_Thwap_.

_Ow, dammit!_

And once again he was back in the hallway, this time with a sizeable bruise forming on his head.

_This is stupid!_ He fumed. _I can't solve the case if I can't even go into the room where the murder happened!_ Frustrated, he kicked his foot against the floor with a scowl.

_Ack! Wha-?_

After almost sliding because of something wet on the floor, his arms wind milled suddenly in a frantic attempt to regain his balance without putting his foot down or stepping in the thick substance again and further polluting evidence. Finally, he settled to a position where he was leaning with one hand against the wall and the other holding up his foot.

_Blood_. Eyes narrowed, he carefully peeled off the sock, making sure that he didn't touch the evidence. _Consistent with time of death – Haibara would've noticed if he was dead already by the time she went up, and besides, she reported that he'd asked for breakfast. Since it's hardly likely someone's impersonating her . . . that leaves only Occhan and Unobo-san_. He snorted. _The murderer would have to be as stupid as Occhan to disguise himself as that guy. Then . . . this blood . . . must belong to either Unobo or the victim_.

Caught between excitement and cold curiosity, he held the sock up to the light streaming in through the windows to better see it by. Snatched it back into the shadows when the blood starting fizzling angrily in the sunlight.

_Okay. I am not going to panic. I am not going to panic. I'm _not.

Instead, he took first one deep breath, then another.

_I'm going to look at this logically. What just happened obviously wasn't impossible, just improbable – it happened. So what am I left with?_ He started to pace a short distance away from the doorway. _The facts. What he had in his hand_ _looked like blood, felt like it, and had even been starting to congeal before exposure to sunlight. So, _logically_, it_ was _blood_. Illogically, his mind was telling him that it couldn't be – the reaction he'd seen went against anything his scientific mind could come up with. He tried to ignore that part.

_But if I just take things as they are, then this means that the murderer stood in that spot for at least long enough for a drop of blood to fall. He must've been looking at – or for – something. Or held up for some reason. Yet the amount of blood in the victim's room said that they weren't all that fussed about getting caught. Why?_

He froze, turned on his heel and went back to the place where the blood was. _Now – let's just imagine for a moment here that I was my proper size. What would I be seeing?_

Across the hallway were a couple of empty rooms – one was a sort of study, with bookshelves and a desk. The smaller closet to the side and at the far end of the house was no more than a broom cupboard. He'd checked the place before, hadn't found anything of interest. The back way showed a door leading onto the second balcony, a small square pane of glass fitted in that still reflected the inside just as much as the outside in the morning light. Its height was approximately a meter or so above his current size – perfectly fine for anyone who didn't have his little problem. Of course, perspectives being as they were, he could hardly figure out what it was exactly that the murderer had been looking at without asking someone to hoist him or by dragging a chair into the hallway.

_Think about it!_ He berated himself with a whack to the head. _Turn around. They probably weren't admiring their reflection!_ He did so and came full-on with an eyeful of clues. Straight ahead was the room that he and the others had been sleeping in that night, the sliding door open on their end, just like the old man had left it before storming down the stairs. From this angle, especially if one was a bit taller, you could see all the way through the room and out the other side. All the way to the open windows on the doors that led to the other balcony.

The murderer had been looking out onto the street. Possibly at somewhere or something in particular. For long enough that it was a distraction. And that meant that there might be someone in the town who either knew who the murderer was or at the least knew enough to be considered dangerous.

If they were considered dangerous, then that had to be a Bad Thing. Because people who had little compunction about killing generally didn't leave loose ends behind.

Rushing breathlessly back down the stairs, he ran back to the main room where Unobo was with the Professor and Haibara. Eyes wide, he noticed with relief that nothing had happened. All three occupants of the room looked decidedly tense, but other than that, everything was alright. It was his job, then, to make sure things stayed that way.

"Ne, hakase," he called out to the professor in his 'Conan' voice, "I need a bit of air – I'll just be out a minute, 'kay!"

And without a further word he was outside, in the street. There were a few buildings on either side of the road for a short distance, this being such a small place, but there were only two that caught his eye. Both were in direct view of the second floor balcony behind and above him; both were two-storey houses themselves.

The first, which was smaller, turned out to have nothing obvious to offer to him. Dust had settled so far around the place that he didn't think that anything inside of it could be classed as dangerous to a killer – that is unless the dust bunnies turned into dirt devils.

The second, however, was larger and had a more lived-in feel about it. It took up two house-lengths and most of the curtains were drawn, shutters closed. Those that weren't were open as far as they could be, drapes fluttering in the breeze. He walked closer and noticed something odd – a faint scorch mark on the path from the gate to the door.

The door was open.

Hesitantly, with a dry mouth, he danced around the open piece of heavy wood in the hope that it wouldn't creak and give him away.

Once inside, he heaved a sigh of relief – one step down, only so many more to go.

People were in danger, after all.

* * *

AN: And there's that one done. Expect more soon – I know exactly what happens, I just have to get it written down. More famous characters will appear, heralding new adventures. I kind of think of this chapter as a sort of prologue, though - when I first started to get the ideas and inspirations, the events in the next chapter happened first. Ironically, I almost started at the beginning. I probably won't get too much of Coming Shadows done 'till at least a couple more chapters of this are written, though. The plot bunnies attacked with fervour and are very good at what they do.

Oh, and there's a reference to one of Lizeth's fan arts for History of Magic.

* * *


	2. The Key and the Door

**The Vampire Detective**

**Chapter two – The Key and the Door**

_'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'_

_'All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.'_

Disclaimer - I don't own most of these characters. I do own the story and anyone I thought up myself. Inspiration goes to Aoyama Gosho, Ellen Brand and others.

Conan crept through the large house – more like a mansion, really – with as little noise as was possible. In more normal circumstances, he would have called out for whoever lived here, but this wasn't normal. He knew the guy could move quickly. He just didn't want to have to learn the hard way _how_ quickly. The idea that they hadn't bought the act and that at this time someone else had already been hurt, that the murderer was in the place already, haunted him.

He had to warn those people. Before anything _did_ happen.

His search took him into various rooms before anything happened to show him where to go. Carpets, tatami, tapestries and wall hangings all met his feet and eyes, the musky scents of dust, old wood and a conglomeration of _various other_ met his nose, at one point surprising him with an idea of food – not too badly done or even forgotten.

It was silent. Conan supposed that that was the strangest and most puzzling thing of them all. Apart from the odd noise he made and the noises from outside, nothing – not even a mouse, as the saying went – could be heard. To say it was getting on his nerves – not to mention spooking him just a little – was an understatement.

He started to get a clue that he was getting closer when the rooms had less dust in them and – perversely – more antiques. Some had notes next to them. _From Maria, for Juan. Remember Milan_, read one. Another, this time in Japanese, read _For an eternal friend, don't forget us! Seigan Miho and Hanashika Taiho_. The second was dated a couple of decades back. Weird.

_This whole place is weird_, thought Conan. _It's. . . how long since I came in through the door? Feels like ages. Hours. Wait. It _couldn't _have been hours! Ran's in danger! How could I just – argh!_

He scowled in front of yet another doorway, a room on one of the lower levels. A hand went up to his head, the other taking off the unneeded glasses for a moment, to let him think as himself. A thing he really needed to do right then.

_I'm awful! That's what I am! I already had enough evidence. I'm sure. And yet here I am, wasting time, just because . . . because of what? Just to try and help someone?_

He growled at himself again. _This. Is. Not. Helping. Anyone_.

Through the door it was, then.

Or rather, as he would refer to it later, through the rabbit-hole.

Even the door didn't creak. The room was dark, too. Not pitch-black, but full of enough shadows that nothing came into clear-cut colour either. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he realized that for the first time, he had entered an occupied room. There were actually two people in it. The first, surprising him and drawing his attention because of the unusual sound, was pacing holes in the carpet. The man – just barely, possibly only a few years older than he was supposed to be – was wearing American style jeans, white T-shirt (which glowed slightly in the dim lighting) and a black leather jacket. The entire combination made him look like someone off of the film set of Grease. Conan froze, half wondering as to who in the world these people were, all this way out here, with a murderer on the other side of the street, when he noticed the other occupant of the room.

It was a woman. He noticed that the first moment he saw her – facial features, hair length and posture in the high-backed chair. She was leaning forward, arms resting on thick armrests, hands crossing each other, face tilted forward slightly. She gave off an aura of bemusement, though whether it was at him or at the guy pacing with his hands in his pockets, he didn't know. He didn't dare move. There was something awfully wrong about this – all of it – and he couldn't shake the feeling. It didn't help when the woman finally spoke.

"You can stop your pacing now. The wait is over; he's here."

There was amusement in that voice. A voice that spoke perfect Japanese yet with a curious lilt, as if there was an old sort of accent in it's layers that he couldn't quite pinpoint. The American's pacing stopped, but he could still hear and see a sort of fidget about him that was reminiscent of someone who wouldn't ever be able to truly sit still. The after-echoes of the woman's voice stopped.

"Ne; obasan, how did you know I was coming here? You must be clever to know that!" He covered up his nervousness with a childish giggle, but that didn't help him when faced with twin stares. There was a short silence, broken by first an incredulous snort and then . . . laughter. As if he had told them a really good joke. _Dammit. I can't give myself away, but I have to somehow get them to realize the danger they're in. The danger Ran and the others are in_. "Ne, obasan?"

The woman's laughter died out quickly and she stood in a graceful, fluid motion. Walking over to the side of the room opposite to Conan and the American, she traced patterns on the wall. "You're the detective. The tantei. You found us. Even when there wasn't really that much to go by. . ."

Conan stared unashamedly in shock. _Does that mean – could it _possibly_ mean – that she – they – led me here? Left some sort of trail? _Knew_ what was going to happen?_ He found himself shaking with anger. _If they'd known . . . If they'd known, they could have _done_ something about it! Not just stood around waiting!_

"You _knew_?! A man _died_ and Ran and the others are in danger and I came here thinking I could help but all the while you knew and did nothing about it, but you could have! _Why didn't you_?! Why the _hell_ didn't you?!"

For a second time the two were staring at him, but this time there was no laughter. He was all too aware that it hadn't really been Conan giving that speech; it had been Kudo Shinichi, incensed and furious. The man glanced at the woman, who deflated slightly with a sigh.

"And that the whole crux of the matter," she said, as if quoting some old and famous book. She was now speaking so quietly that he could hardly hear her. "We knew that something might happen. Not what. We couldn't appear. If we did, then he would run. We would only be able to follow. No matter how fast we were."

"So we left everything to the normal people, the guys he wouldn't suspect." This time it was the American, and although his accent was good, his Japanese sounded like it had been taught to him by someone with a heavy Osaka-ben. "Figured if he was arrogant enough to call out detectives – a famous one, even – then we could use that against him." He let out a breath, seeming to be more than slightly disturbed. "I still – the idea that he'd – actually _do_ that. . ."

Conan was still fuming. "It doesn't _matter_ what you thought the guy would do. You could've done _something_." As he was saying this, his mind backpedalled to what the guy had just said. _Wait. Waitwait. That guy said detectives – as in plural. As in more than just Mori-san. As in . . . me?!_

He backed away a step, but the woman smiled as if nothing was wrong. "And _what_, my dear tantei, would you have done if you had seen two strange people arrive and disappear with an acquaintance of yours only days after receiving word of a possible tragedy?"

He knew he was stuttering, eyes wide and arms windmilling, but he couldn't help it. Not only had they both now said and implied that they knew that he was a detective in his own right, but the one thing that really got under his skin was that _dammit they were right_. He hated it, but he could see what would have happened. He would have thought that the tragedy in the letter was related to them, not knowing what he did now.

"I- bu- but - ! I mean – it's just that – those people back there – Ran's still in danger, dammit!" He clenched his fists, not nearly as intimidating or meaningful as it should have been. "I can't afford to just stand here arguing with idiots when she's in the same house as a killer! If they tried to do anything to her now, I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Even if I was-"

He cut himself off before he said anything more incriminating. They were watching him, now. Both of them. But not as if he'd grown a second – taller, maybe – head, or even as if he'd said anything weird at all. They were just looking at him, almost expectantly. The worst thing was – he _wanted_ to speak. That was the part that was ignoring the sensible bits of him that were screaming that both of the strangers were downright dangerous. That people shouldn't just trust people – strangers – that quickly. That strangers didn't learn your secrets that quickly unless they'd been watching you – following you.

_Dammit, what's wrong with me? I shouldn't even be thinking things like that. Ran's in danger right now, and for that matter, so am I. If these guys really do know who I am, then more than that, my identity's in danger. These people could tell the others. I don't know how they know, but Ran – she'd hate me._

"You must really like her," the guy said softly, now leaning against the wall with his hands behind his head with his eyes closed. "That girl. You know that person's still there, yet you're still not afraid. It doesn't matter what they might do to _you_."

Conan didn't – or at least tried not to – give them any indication of whether or not they were right. He stood his ground, not moving an inch yet ready to move at a moment's notice.

"Y'know," the guy continued, opening his eyes to look straight at Conan, "that kind of thinking's suicidal. Especially for one who can't live _up_ to it."

Conan saw red. It was clear now that they knew – really knew – who he was, but they were also mocking him? How well he could protect Ran? It didn't matter whether or not it was the truth; that was too far.

"But then again," the guy carried on light heartedly as if he hadn't just angered the economy-sized detective, "You're doing better than I would. What with being a murder magnet and all."

He squawked this time, anger lost in indignation. "I am _not_ a murder magnet! Most people have been planning things long _before_ I get there, I'll have you know."

There was a feminine snort, an obvious attempt to hide laughter, and he had to all but physically force himself not to relax. He was scared to find that he was finding it harder and harder. A smell, not unlike a sweet perfume, didn't help. Or it did. Depending on which side of the rabbit hole you were looking from.

It was sweet, but not sickly so. There was a subtleness about it that hinted and whispered of flowers and smokes. A blunt edge that promised dreams and illusions.

_Wh- what's happening to me?_ His vision swam, his legs buckled beneath him. _I – I feel all woozy . . ._ Balance went bye-bye and he fell forwards, blacking out as he did so.

When he opened his eyes, he found that he was lying on something soft. Being cradled in the arms of the lady. The nice lady. The dangerous lady. They were both the same. It didn't matter. Nothing ever did, since it never really made sense in dreams anyway.

That was all he could think that it could be. What else? In real life, people's eyes didn't glow like that. His vision still blurred. At least he could still see the smile on her face. She had a nice smile. Just another reason why it had to be a dream. Real people didn't have teeth that long. She was cold, too. Not freezing, just cool. He absently wondered whether or not her voice was cool in this dream-world, too. Ran's was warm.

He fidgeted suddenly, wishing that he could wake up. There was something he was sure he should be remembering, but . . . what?

"Do you trust me?"

_What? Why would she ask that?_ It was a dream; nothing was ever as it seemed in dreams. But she hadn't hurt him, wasn't going to. How did he know that- ? _Trust . . . trust you._

He felt rather than saw the lady smile as he took a long blink. Black and white, black and colour. . . Something about red. _Ran likes red_.

"What would you do for her?"

The question was only murmured this time, almost as if they were talking to themself. But he didn't have to think – never would have to with a question like that. _Anything. I'd do anything. To protect her. Anything. . ._

A sigh. Why a sigh?

"For her. . . would you die?"

He wasn't even too thrown. In a way, he already had died for her. He'd become little, all but abandoned his old life. If it meant Ran was safe. . . he'd go through death and back again. _It's only a dream, but it feels so real. If . . . if Ran needed me. . . and because of me, success was inevitable. . . I'd willingly . . . anything_.

"Do you believe in magic?"

_No. Magic goes against science. It doesn't make sense. It can't be controlled. But dreams can't be controlled either; so maybe dreams are a kind of magic?_

There had been a sort of irony in her voice. Maybe he hadn't needed to answer. Dreams were a kind of magic of themselves; in dreams, your wishes could be made real and your hopes realities. In his dreams, sometimes he was Shinichi again. Sometimes...

"If. . . if vampires were real. . .what would you choose?"

This, he thought with a detached sense of calm amusement, had to be the strangest dream he'd ever had. Maybe the lady didn't know that they weren't in the real world anymore; they'd long since fallen down the rabbit-hole. Logic had waved merrily goodbye a while back – this was now a place of magic and the supernatural. A place where words became reality more than science and facts.

Of course, if that was all true, then there _were_ vampires in his dream-world. That they were dangerous went without saying; things like that always were. With his kick-shoes on, _he_ was dangerous. So was Ran, even without anything to help her.

_Ran_.

Ran wasn't just dangerous. She was. . . in danger.

Now.

She was in danger now.

He couldn't tell or remember much more than that, but reality mingled itself with the ideas of dreams and wouldn't let go.

He noticed belatedly that the lady – he was still practically lying across her, he realized; Ran would throw a fit – was silent and unmoving, waiting for a reply of some kind.

He looked up at her again and actually _looked_ and _remembered_. Her eyes, her smile, her skin, her laugh, her everything in how she moved. She wasn't evil. Not like he'd read them to be; not like he'd thought they'd be; not like the . . . person . . . back at that place would be if he was a part of the dream-world as well.

_I'd choose it_, he thought, unaware that, like with all of his other answers, it had come out into the world as the slightest sound. One that couldn't be heard unless one had uncanny hearing. _For her. For the others. To go against_ them_._

And all of a sudden, she was no longer still. Silence rang out as something flashed in lamplight, but the not-boy would be damned if he admitted what he'd seen, dream or not.

It hurt. Some said it didn't, but they were lying. There wasn't much pain, but it was enough to put cracks in the world he had fabricated around himself. Reality came crashing down around him with a horrified gasp. Denial, pure and true, reigned. _I'm still dreaming. This can't be happening. There's no _way_ this can be happening_.

And yet in the back of his mind, the place where the dreams still existed and made sense in that way that only dreams do, his mind was putting things together.

"_If . . . vampires were real . . ."_

If dreams were intruding into the realm of reality, then vampires _were_ real.

"_. . .what would you choose?"_

And if they _were_ real, then that changed everything. The mystery back at the house, the town itself, the strange mansion he was in and the pictures on the walls with their messages, the man and the woman he'd met, the _vampires_. . .

If they were real, would he make the same choice? The reasons he'd had for choosing before had been ones he would have used in his usual, sane mind, if sanity included things like this.

So what was the difference now?

His dreams became interwoven spiderwebs of fractured realities as the part of his mind that wasn't in denial slowly came to the fore, weaving new patterns into what he believed and unwinding where it wasn't needed any more.

He ignored – tried not to think about – the one last thing that was needed, focusing instead on other things. He absently thought of Ran. Not of how she would react, but her face, her laugh, her anger, the passion in her face when she was doing something she truly believed in. _Don't worry, Ran. I'll come back to you. I'm coming back_.

In the end, he wasn't sure which it was that caused him to truly lose consciousness; the red hot pokers being jabbed wherever pain could be felt or the sudden feverish heart attack that made him see double.

* * *

She sighed, a mix of worry and relief. The child that wasn't a child lay in her arms, unconscious but not unfeeling or unchanging. She could see the sweat forming already. Footsteps came closer, and she rose, careful for her burden. Together she and he walked up to ground floor, to a room where they laid him down.

Her companion took a deep breath.

"You do know," he said, "you're going to make one hell of a lot of enemies like this."

She laughed softly. "I know."

He let out a long whistle before giving way at last, chuckling.

"You always were one to attract trouble."

"I know that, too. I attracted you, didn't I?"

"True." A snort. "But – a vampire detective? The whole underworld's gonna be up in arms."

She gave him a rather victorious smile tempered with mischief, not unlike one that he'd seen frequently ever since she had found him in New York.

"And why not? There should always be a first for everything." She wiped a bit of sweat from the boy's forehead. "Besides; he chose it for good reasons. I could see it. That's more than I could say for so many others. . ."

With a sigh, a tired sigh, she left, leaving behind them very little that had not been in the room before.

One small note on a piece of paper. A suit of clothes – just in case. And one boy, not a boy, changing, becoming.

* * *

Wakefulness – for once – came slowly. Not unlike climbing out of a cavern of duvets, except this time there was an orchestra of drums waiting for him at the top once he'd actually woken up. He blinked. The drums weren't going away. Well, at least it wasn't only his head throbbing. He always had _really_ bad jitters whenever _that_ happened. He blinked again. There was something fuzzy about his vision . . . oh, yeah. He rubbed at his eyes, wiping away remnants of sleep. _Okay. So where did I put my –_

_Glasses?_

Shinichi glanced around with wide eyes (wide, _bugged_ eyes) and fought down bad words. The room. He didn't recognize the room. And, what was more, he had a problem. A _big_ problem. Usually he had a _little_ problem, but right now, it was, well . . . _big_.

Somehow, someone who knew about him – they had to know about him, or else why would there be a set of clothes just over there his size – someone who _knew_ about him had for some reason been able to and had slipped him one of the temporary cures one Haibara Ai had developed and made him carry around with him. Just for emergencies.

But. . . who? Who would do that kind of thing? If they knew about him, then it couldn't be a prank – you just didn't do that kind of thing as a prank. It was damned _dangerous_. And not just because the cure had the added side effect of possibly killing him every time he used it. How could they have slipped it to him, anyway? It wasn't like he'd even had breakfast before – before . . .

His head chose that moment to start pounding again. _Argh. Thinking later_. _First_ - he cut himself off with a blush as he realized. – _clothes. That comes a most definite first_.

The embarrassment didn't leave his face until – even after – the entire suit of clothes had vacated their position nearby and been relocated to a place where they were more . . . needed.

A further look around the room concluded that it wasn't all that big. The style reminded him of somewhere he'd been recently – the word 'mansion' cropped up, as did a flash of something else – leading him to believe that he hadn't gone too far from the last place he'd been before he'd blacked out. Other than that, there seemed to be an old-style desk of some sort with a phone on it, a chair, and that was about it. The door was half open, so he hadn't been kidnapped here. And if he had, his kidnappers were being pretty complacent. The only thing that was properly secured was the window on the other side of the room.

In actual fact, he realized with a dry throat and a still-pounding head, there was one other thing. Several other things, all piled neatly onto a chair. With a . . . note stuck just as neatly on top. Trying carefully not to think too hard on the _hows_ and the _whys_, he picked up with hesitant hands the little rectangular scrap of paper that some part of him, for some reason, really didn't want to know to much about, didn't want to be looking at it too closely, didn't want to be reading it . . .

Luckily – or unluckily, depending on which side of the rabbit-hole you favoured – the detective part of Kudo Shinichi's brain took over with all the curiosity of a cat. A cat that _knew_ the old adage about Those Who Poke Their Whiskers In Where They Aren't Supposed To. And yet there he was, Poking.

The plain white piece of card was pretty unremarkable, to tell the truth. But that wasn't what had Shinichi in shivers, in turns caught between the shock that meant the relaxing of muscles, making him almost drop it, and the fear – no, make that terror – that made him grip the offending note hard so that no-one else could ever see the accusatory words written in elegant calligraphy, the last two words in just-as-elegant English letters.

_Catch the killer, cover the crime._

_You'll know what I mean, Mr. Detective_.

His hands suddenly loosened their grip on the missive, letting it flutter to the floor as they went to his head, which was now pounding with all the ferocity of total recall, everything in the smallest detail which his detective's mind had picked up. He remembered. . . everything. The interrupted breakfast to the murder scene to exploring the huge mansion to finding the strange man and woman to – _oh, kami_ – getting knocked out – _only I wasn't knocked out, was I?_ – to – _oh, kami_.

_Kami, no._

_But I_ remember.

_Catch the killer . . . cover the crime._

_Dammit, this is stupid_. And it was. He was a detective; he didn't believe in fairytales or ghost stories or horror movies or anything from the Twilight Zone. He was being _stupid_. He was a detective. Detectives – and especially this detective – weren't supposed to freak out at things like this like . . . like. . . like little children. Detectives handled things logically and with-

"_!!"_

_Damn_, that hurt! Only that time it hadn't been a headache. It had been a full-blown full-body ache. Everywhere that there was something in him that could hurt, had hurt. Not, however, in the same way as it was when he changed from Conan to Shinichi or back again. No. That was more of a heart-attack-and-fever. He sort of remembered vaguely feeling like that before passing out, but that wasn't what he felt like now. _Now_ felt like – like all those times he'd trained too long when studying soccer or karate. Like those fewer times when he'd just become Conan again and his muscles were protesting. Except it wasn't only in one or two places like when he'd strained something; this was all over. And it hurt. A _lot_.

His mouth felt dry. Maybe he was being poisoned somehow? He immediately discarded the notion – why go to all the trouble of having him big? And everything else that had happened?

He gritted his teeth. Why indeed.

Absently, his tongue skidded over the roof of his mouth for strange tastes anyhow. Didn't hurt to be cautious. But then his tongue skidded over his teeth and he was sent into a whole new wave of panic.

_I have fangs!?_

_I – but that – that's impossible -!_

It had to be. But that didn't stop him from spluttering any more than the fact that said – _fangs_ – had just _retracted_, if that was the right term for it. Leaving no trace that they had been any longer than any other time. _K'so. Damn. How the hell am I going to tell, well_, anybody _about this?_ If it'd just been the memories, he could've put it down to temporary insanity. If it'd just been the fact that he was once again Shinichi rather than Conan, he could've put it down to someone slipping him a cure. If it'd just been the fangs, he would've been able to put it down to a really sick prank. But –

It was almost as if they weren't even there any more. Apart from the fact that they tingled strangely every time a new wave of pain hit him. Which seemed to be getting worse and worse every –

He bit his hand at new pain, grimacing when he realized that the pain had brought the elongated incisors back, drawing blood.

_Ow. Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow_. Oh. _Oh, damn_. . .

The pain ebbed away to a dull – _expectant –_ throb as the jagged bruises and two now clean cuts started to heal up in front of his eyes.

_Copper_, he thought, the word coming to mind without his planning on it. _It tastes like copper and cherries_. Deciding that he and normal life had parted ways a long time ago and now, finally, sanity had also decided that he wasn't worth knowing and left him to catch up on his more-than-six impossible (or should that be merely improbable now?) things to do before breakfast. He shook his head, a hand going to his eyes. _At least I can think now. Don't think why and just don't _think_ about it_.

The rebellious part of his brain that _just wouldn't shut up, dammit!_ however, felt yet another piece click into place. The window.

Of all things, that was the one that he found scared him the most. The others had freaked him to his very limits and still continued to do so, but the small fact that he hadn't been able to see out of the window meant that he hadn't been able to tell how late it was. The phone on the desk wasn't advanced enough to display the time, and Conan's watch was probably stashed away in one of his old blazer jacket pockets. The problem was, even if he could find the watch-come-stun gun, it still wouldn't help. Time alone wouldn't be able to tell him when sunset was or even if the sun had already gone down. Not for the first time, Shinichi was trusting his instincts on this one; he'd prefer to look the fool if embarrassed and proven wrong than be burnt quite literally when proven right.

It only took a moment and his fingers had found the phone. They moved without thinking, without needing to think, really, since all other options were out. Agasa-hakase and Haibara were both in the same place as the others, likely – no, more than likely – to be overheard if he tried to contact them. So, of course, for him there was only one number left on his list, and that was the person he was dialling.

Handset to his ear, he tore up from the chair and started pacing holes in the carpet, waiting for them to pick up.

_One ring, two rings, three rings, four_. It felt and sounded idiotically like one of those playground games he had become much more familiar with over the past year. _Five rings, six rings, seven rings, more_.

Abruptly the waiting game was over, and suddenly he was getting an earful of angry Kansai-ben.

"This'd better be good, Kudo, because if it isn't –"

Shinichi cut across him, not having the time to learn new insults and what exactly the other boy would do to him if there wasn't a good explanation.

"Look, just for once, would you listen, Hattori? I think – no, make that I am in trouble. Big trouble."

". . . What kind of trouble are we talkin' about here, Kudo?"

And for once he was glad that the other detective was as avidly addicted to mysteries as he was and not to mention the small fact that he didn't always use his head over instinct and heart.

He hesitated, though. Thinking about doing something and actually doing it are two very different things.

"I was knocked out." It wasn't completely a lie. "When is it?"

Hattori growled. "First you're tellin' me you're in trouble, then you're askin' me what the time is? Mind telling me what's going on here?"

"I – that's what I'm trying to figure out!" Shinichi ran a hand through his hair, inwardly wincing at the snapping tones he was using. He sighed. "Someone sent an invitation to the old man to com out here – a weird old place. Town. It's old, but odd – half western, in a way. Someone got killed –" here he ignored an odd noise at the other end "- and I investigated. I know who the murderer is, I just didn't have enough evidence to credibly nail them. When I figured there might be link between them and someone else –" He growled, frustrated. He was not going to tell everything to Hattori, no matter how much he trusted the other guy. Some things. . . he shivered. Some things were better left unsaid. "I woke up maybe ten minutes ago. I can't tell."

"When was it you got knocked out?" There was something strange in the Osakan's voice.

"Morning," Shinichi replied dryly. "Around quarter past ten when the murder took place."

A low whistle came through with a tin-like voice through the receiver. "That must've been one hell of a blow to the head, Kudo."

His blood ran cold.

"_Hattori, tell me_."

"It's afternoon," the Osakan said shortly. "Still a few hours 'till sunset, though." A pause; good. It gave him long enough that he could remember how to breath again. "Oi, Kudo?" Shinichi felt rather than heard the other's voice waver slightly in hesitation. "'Neechan. Is she-?"

"She's still alive," he answered, brain taking a back seat to what his senses were telling him. "So are the others." No new scent of blood, other than the familiar one of his own from when he'd bitten his hand.

There was a faint rustle audible from the phone. "Good. Then the bastard's probably got some sort of agenda; he woulda taken care of things while you were out of the picture otherwise. Which gives you enough time to _explain_ things to me."

_Doki. Doki_. He had wondered at one point about that, and it seemed his heart was still as able to pound in his ears as before. That he could still breath was evident in that he'd nearly hyperventilated moments before.

"Ok, Kudo. Just calm down." It took him a moment to figure out that it wasn't just his thoughts, that he wasn't just thinking aloud. "You can explain when you're a bit calmer."

Shinichi laughed, for once actually losing his grip and sounding like it. "Calm? That's a good one. I haven't been trying to stay _calm_, Hattori. I've been trying to stay _sane_. When I woke up, I was Shinichi again. Not Edogawa Conan, Hattori. Kudo Shinichi. And before you say anything, no, I wasn't drugged, I didn't take a cure and I didn't even have any _alcohol_."

"Mind tellin' me what you did take?"

"B- nothing!" He could all but see the Osakan's brows raise in disbelief. They were neither of them naive. Shinichi knew that, and knew that Hattori knew. The slip hadn't – couldn't have been, really – enough, but he himself had patched up the pieces of a case far too often to take it for granted that just one little slip wouldn't hurt. He wasn't even fool enough to believe that he'd only slipped once.

"Look, Kudo. You know the drill. Either you tell me, or I figure things out on my own. Either way, we're gonna find out what happened to you. The important thing now is-"

"I already know what happened to me, Hattori." His voice was now calmer, but on the inside he was just the same as before. It was almost as if he was distant from everything. "I'm not stupid. I know what I am." He hesitated, remembering what the other had said earlier. Not too long. . . "Oi, Hattori. How dark is it out?"

"It's getting darker. Dunno how things are at your end, but the sun's just-"

Hattori cut off, leaving them both in silence once more. _Damn. Damn it. That guy just had to be as smart as I am, didn't he? Only now, he's going to think I'm insane. Not long now and I'm going to hear the laughter any moment now and I'm gonna be the laughing stock of the entire police force and_-

"Oi, Kudo – you still with me?"

-_he's going to tell Kazuha who's going to tell Ran and that's bad because Ran hates scary stories which is really bad because I'm gonna have to hide this from her as well or else she's going to be scared of me and – huh?_

"_OI_! Kudo – you still alive over there – ah, bad analogy. _You_ know what I mean." Hattori sighed. "Eh. . ."

It sounded like he might have said more, but at that moment they were both deafened by a loud ringing, one which he didn't immediately realize wasn't coming from his end, somehow. Had he interrupted the middle of a case? Had there been an accident? Or a fire? What about. . .

"Hang on," he began to ask, "where are you?"

Hattori simply snorted derisively before answering. "At school, you baka. Where else would I be? _Some_ of us didn't get a day pass. You rang me in the middle of a lesson and I had to escape both class and Kazuha."

Oh. Wait. Pause and rewind.

"You know."

"Yeah." The Osakan actually seemed pretty subdued by the fact. Or the idea.

"And you're not freaking out or telling me that I'm crazy?"

"I grew up with Kazuha, you idiot. She's the one who insists I keep an omamori, remember?" There was a pause and a rustle. "Apart from other things, Mister Only One Truth panicking over stuff he doesn't believe in is about on par with the world ending. So yeah, I believe you. If there's one thing an impersonator can't copy, it's Kudo in a panic."

"Thanks. I think." Hattori snorted again. "But I still don't understand how you're just-"

"Later, Kudo," he growled. "And when I say later, I mean later this time." The Osakan huffed, sounding disconcerted with _something_, at least. For a few minutes, neither spoke. There was a kind of quiet tension in the air. Both knew what exactly Shinichi was, even though neither had said as much. Shinichi himself still hadn't said it in the privacy of his own thoughts, even though that expectant hunger was still throbbing away inside of him.

"So." The silence was broken with just one word. "What're you gonna do about that case of yours?"

_What? Oh. The case. The case!_ And suddenly he had a headache coming on of quite a different kind.

"How am I supposed to deal with _that_? All they know is that – _damn_. That Conan's gone missing."

"You can deal with that much," Hattori breezed. "You're not a half-bad bluffer. What's got me is that the way you've said things, the bastard who killed that other guy was just like you. Only he's been around a bit longer and has homicidal tendencies. Am I right or am I right?"

"You're right," he admitted almost reluctantly.

"Then I don't know how you're gonna like this, but you're probably gonna have to get you're story straight to be able to get the guy in 'cuffs, Kudo."

Suddenly, Shinichi didn't seem to have any breath left any more, and not just because he didn't need it, now.

"Oi, Kudo, you ok? You not freakin' out on me?"

"No." His voice croaked. "Not much."

Except that she had said the same, or as good as. On the card. " 'Catch the killer and cover the crime', huh?"

"Er, right." Footsteps. Pause. "Looks like you aughta be safe now. Sun's going down. You should probably remember to breath before you try anything, though."

Huh? Wha- ? Ack! Mortified, he proceeded to cough and splutter, making Hattori laugh. When he'd finished, however, his friend continued as seriously as before.

"'you be careful, you hear me? Don't panic. It'll help if you don't go falling face-forward onto any wooden stakes, too, but you don't me to tell you that. You survive long enough and I'll be right down as soon as I can, Kudo."

Shinichi stiffened. "I don't need-"

"Humour me, will you? And get back to that case."

With that, the other line clicked dead, a long beeping tone ringing in his ears until he put the handset back down.

He only allowed himself a couple of moments to regain his bearings from the bizarre conversation. Time wasn't exactly on his side, what with not only the case itself but also himself to fight against. With the case, it was simply a matter of making sure that the murderer didn't get away, make sure that the police believed the story he was fabricating to go with the evidence. But as for himself. . .

He wasn't a fool. The throbbing had never died down. It was only waiting, like a coiled snake or a wild cat waiting to pounce. It was _expecting_.

All he knew was that the next time it actually became impatient, he doubted whether biting down on his own hand would be enough.

He would have to finish the case quickly, to make sure that it didn't get to that.

* * *

AN: Oh, _that_ was _fun_. Really, it was. Ok, sometimes I felt kinda guilty about what I was doing to him, but the thought of later chapters kept me going, not to mention all the good feedback I've got so far. And the previous chapter didn't even have any overt vampires in it. 00 Hmm... lessee. Things that were always gonna be in the story ever since I started it? The fact that Conan's gone bai-bai. I'm not saying he'll never ever possibly return, just that if he did it'd hardy be for very long. The fact that Hattori got called by Kudo-In-A-Panic never got cut out either, but panickyness got toned down a little.

One major thing was the two original characters. No, they don't have names. That is highly intentional, since so far I am unaware of too many original characters with original names that actually work, and I also thought that maybe I'd let my readers have a say. Those two, y'know, didn't originally exist. In the beginning, it was gonna be about twelve or something, and . . . I dunno. Numbers got shrank until there were only two left, these two, and by that time they'd made their own characters. The guy is actually based somewhat loosely on a Doctor Who companion named Fritz who only appeared in the BBC books in adventures with the Eighth Doctor, and the woman... mystery. An overall feeling of mystery and trustworthyness.

(I'd meant to have this chapter and the next chapter as one, but this one was already so much longer than the first. The next's probably gonna be a bit shorter, though.)

Seigan Miho and Hanashika Taiho were borrowed from Icka M. Chif and friends - from a story that inspired me greatly. I wanted names, and those two came to mind. It doesn't cross with that world, though. (the story being the _Price You Pay_ series)


	3. The Crime

The Vampire Detective

Chapter 3 – The Crime

_Standing in line to see the show tonight and there's a light on/ Heavy glow/ By the way, I tried to say I'd be there/ . . . Tried to say I know you – from before. . ./ -Song_

Disclaimer: Every time I read Conan, I feel shame for what I've done to him here. Poor boy. Gosho Aoyama doesn't torture him like I do.

It wasn't really all that far to the front door he had so recently come in by, any difficulties made ridiculous by his heightened sense of smell.

His Conan outfit was being carried – hopefully securely – under his jacket, the glasses and stun-gun watch safely tucked into an inner pocket. Like he did any time he was so fortunate to return to his original form. He might need them.

The door loomed before him. This was it, then. The last –

_Oh, who the hell do I think I'm kidding? You know it, Hattori knows it, those two obviously do. Besides, if I just keep wallowing in denial, I won't be able to do this properly. I'll only end up hurting everyone around me. Whether I want to or not_. He straightened himself up and took a cautious look outside. Good. There was adequate cloud cover. No doubt there wouldn't be for long. . . Gathering his new blazer about him as a precautionary measure, he hastened across the street, trying as best he could to look and be as inconspicuous as possible, his thoughts calmly whirling circles in his head all the while, accompanied for a frenzied minute by a prickling under the surface of any flesh even partially uncovered. His bright blue eyes hardened. _I am what I am. If that means indulging in superstitions made real and insanities made just as much so, then so be it. Just because I'm . . . that . . . doesn't mean that I'm going to be any less of a detective_.

_No_, he reasoned to himself with a slightly feral grin, _the small fact of a thing like being a – a _vampire_ would actually more than likely help than hinder_. Especially since, now that he was hidden in the awnings of the other building, he could find it only too easy to hear exactly what was going on in the place.

"It's not that I don't understand you, Mori-san, simply that things don't really look – well – good for you."

That was Megure-keibu. Good and bad, that. Good because the inspector knew him and trusted him well enough that any solution he brought to the case would be taken at face value as long as he could back it up. Bad because the good inspector knew him well enough that he might well be able to tell that something about Kudo Shinichi was off.

His grin faded slowly into a dark scowl as he listened to more of the same conversation. Somehow, Megure-keibu and the others he had brought along – thankfully not anyone he knew this time – had been duped into believing that ojichan was the culprit by circumstance, coincidence and conjecture, not to mention the slippery silver tongue of Unobo. That wouldn't do. If things went wrong tonight, then an innocent man would be framed, a murderer would be loosed and allowed to wreak kami-knew how much havoc. Never mind the fact that the innocent man happened to be Ran's father and the man who – however unwittingly – had taken care of him for the past year.

Silent as a dead man walking, he slipped into the hallway where he listened to the sounds of the conversation and – albeit _wrong_ – deductions, able to make out their movements by the slightest sounds.

Ojichan was pacing holes in the carpet. Every so often he would stop, standing stock still for a moment or two before starting off again, muttering under his breath about the circumstances and how he couldn't have done it all the while. A slightly heavier creak in the floorboards proved the professor to be balancing nervously on the balls of his feet. Haibara was kicking the back of her chair, clearly herself by the fact that there weren't any other child-sized girls in the room. The various police officers on duty were still milling around, obviously intent on finding just one more piece of evidence to assist them.

Ran was just sitting there. He hadn't heard her move very much at all, even though her breathing seemed rough. It sounded like she had been crying. A lump formed in Shinichi's throat at the thought of seeing her again as his own self. He forced himself to swallow it. _Ran can't – she can't know how_. He knew how she was like with things that appeared in ghost stories. It just wouldn't be fair.

Unobo-san himself, however, was not in sight – or rather hearing-range. Shinichi frowned at a couple of overheard comments that he was overseeing some of the investigation. He could only hope that the man wasn't being handed chances to contaminate and corrupt evidence.

A chair creaked as Megure leaned forward. "The point of the matter is that everything we've got is inconclusive." The inspector sighed. "Yet nothing we get actually helps at all."

Ran jerked in her seat. The sudden movement let Shinichi release a breath he hadn't known he had been holding.

"If. . . if _Shinichi_ was here-"

Two twin breaths were sucked in at the same time, but for different reasons. Ran, because she was getting used to the fact that Shinichi was usually _never_ here. Shinichi, because he _was_ here.

Unable to draw the moment out any longer, he slipped further down the corridor and near-sauntered into the room, his confident expression a mask for the insecurities and the nervous tension.

"I suppose," he said in a confident drawl, "that it's just as well that I am here then, isn't it?"

First came the silence. Which shouldn't have come as too much of a surprise, really – no-one had expected him to appear, he hadn't been seen in weeks or months, and he had just sauntered back in as if he hadn't a care in the world. _And that's the way things have to be_.

Next, however, was the hard part. Megure-keibu stood abruptly as Ojichan stopped pacing just as suddenly. Haibara had grown still, staring at him as if he'd grown a second head, looking at him with that calculating gleam in her eyes that demanded answers. Hakase had paled slightly, his eyes widening and uncertain whether or not to feel happy or worried.

Megure-keibu had just started to welcome him, saying a warm "Kudo-kun!" when he felt Ran's arms about him, squeezing him as if to make sure that he was real, that he was there. Also, more than possibly, to make sure he didn't leave.

"_Shinichi!_"

_Oof. Ribs. Ears. Ouch_.

"Shinichi-kun," hakase started as soon as he was released from the bear-hug into a less uncomfortable arm lock. "You didn't tell us that you also received a letter."

The detective breathed a mental sigh of relief, shooting a glance of thanks back at the old family friend.

"Sorry about that. I heard from the kid that you guys were invited and thought I'd be more useful in the background." He smiled sheepishly. "Plans went to hell in a handbasket when the kid saw something that didn't agree with him."

Ran rewarded him with a sympathetic gasp for the trouble of coming up with a cover story at such short notice. "Poor Conan-kun! Where is he now? Is he all right?"

He held up a hand in a half-gesture to hopefully get her to stop worrying. "It's alright," he said with a smile. "Kid's fine. I came here with a couple of friends, so he went back with them." A shrug to hide the shiver at how close to the truth it all was. "I told them I'd be able to take a ride back with friends."

Ran blinked. Blinked again. Then she smiled, relaxing her grip on his arm.

"Then you're staying. That does mean you're staying, right?"

"I – I, err –" _Uh-huh, those _are_ glares coming directly from the direction of Haibara and Hakase_. "Well, I've got to solve the case first," he said. It wasn't lost on anyone that he'd evaded the question.

Megure cleared his throat to break the moment. "Well. I suppose you'll be needing to see the scene of the crime, then, Kudo-kun?"

Shinichi shrugged nonchalantly again but started towards the door, the others following after. "Conan-kun filled me in on most of the details, so I know about everything that happened up until he- went back home." He swallowed, and hopefully no-one recognized the hesitation for what it was. "I could still do with a look around, though. See if I get anything the others missed."

_Not to mention a whole new perspective_. He tried to ignore a flip of half-nausea that followed his attempt to remember how the scene had looked last time he had been there. _Now that I know what happened, I'll be needing to look for ways to come up with a cover story rather than uncover the truth_.

_Let's see; we've got the house by the way – not needed in the story. Too many questions, and he's got no real direct link to it. We've got the fang marks I saw on Sawada-san after he died. ._ . Briefly he wondered if he himself had similar marks and if he would be able to _make_ them. Shaking his head, he put the thoughts out of his mind. They wouldn't help him – rather, they would make things worse. _We've got the time it took him to get down and start talking to us, to announce his presence. Any time before that is fair game; if he's as fast as I think he is – as I think_ I _could be – then the amount of time he did have would have been more than enough. Problem is,_ they _don't know that, and I don't plan on telling them. Especially not Megure-keibu, Mori-san or Ran. Definitely not Ran. But . . . !_

He was jolted out of his musings by a noise. His head shot around, trying to find the source; only to find that one of the steps had creaked. Privately, he cursed. He'd have to get used to his new quirks, and fast.

Slowly, he realized that the creaky step hadn't been the only thing to drag him out of his thoughts. Someone was muttering quietly. From the sound of things, they hadn't just started talking. There was a short contemplative break, and then a sigh.

"_Kudo-kun, I hope you know what you're doing here . . . don't you dare try to make any promises you know for a fact you won't be able to keep. . _."

Haibara. He couldn't see her or hakase, leading as he was, but he couldn't – wouldn't be able to keep those two in the dark, because if he did try then it wouldn't work for very long. Agasa-hakase had been there for him while he had grown up, and there still when he had gone to the man with a – not so – little problem. Haibara Ai knew better than anyone else the effects of the Apotoxin, having not only created the damn drug but also fallen under its influence. She would know sooner rather than later that something new was wrong with him whether or not he told her. He gave her credit for that much – she was smart, in her own field.

Maybe, just maybe, she would be able to help him. Turn the situation around. He was back to his proper age, so maybe, just maybe she could make it so that he could keep that without the annoying side effects.

Annoying side effects that were making themselves known all the time. Whether he wanted them to or not.

He reached the doorway of the room where everything had started and stopped in front of the various officers stationed there taking notes and trying to investigate what should have been an impossible murder. Putting on a slight show of doing so, he looked around.

"What about the other man? The kid told me he was called Unobo."

One of the officers nodded absently. The other shrugged apologetically. It was he who answered.

"Poor guy. He was looking kind of pale last time I saw him. I think all this has got on his nerves, if you get what I mean. He asked for a restroom break – you can see the man assigned to make sure he isn't up to mischief over there, down the hall."

Shinichi fought hard to stop the snicker of laughter attempting to break free. Instead he thanked the man who was now looking back at his younger partner and correcting something on a sheet; some kind of form. After a moment, he was uncomfortably aware of the younger boy's eyes on the back of his head as he was getting more last minute details from Megure-keibu. Taking in all of the information from the inspector much like a sponge would water as he also took in his surroundings from a different angle and viewpoint.

Nothing had changed if you didn't count the police cordons and evidence markers. Around him, people talked, not knowing and not heeding to the headache he was receiving just because things were normal. The body was still in the same position, sprawled on the floor with the neck bared to the air. The desk with all of its papers was still exactly the same as he had last seen it; exactly as he had left it. Other things he noticed – the window was slightly open, likely to let a breeze in for the late Sawada-san; the bed was made, but not unslept in; here and there places where blood had been previously were now burnt patches on the carpet, floor and mats.

Blood.

He suddenly realized what the odd flip in his stomach must have been earlier; it had been a warning.

Because now, he thought he was going to be sick. Or at least, would have been if he had been given the chance to eat breakfast. Somehow it all translated into a frenzy of get out of here now that chased him all the way into the spare room adjacent to the one in which he and the others had slept in.

It was somewhere clean. Somewhere different. Somewhere untainted by blood and death. Somewhere that he could go that wouldn't fill his head with visions of –

Footsteps. Heavy ones and soft ones, not making any effort at being quiet. Not in a fit state to think clearly, he tensed into the deeper shadows of the room, gasping in a hiss of breath. He felt something in him snap and finally relax, causing all of his remaining senses to go hyper and his canines to sharpen. Footsteps again, getting closer. Both seemed more worried than scared, even though only one was coming forward. Why weren't they scared? They should be. He closed his eyes. They shouldn't have to see him like this. It was too bad that he had to deal with it, that Hattori knew. But for them-

"Shinichi-kun? Mou, Shinichi-kun, are you all right?"

He jerked bolt upright as if held there by a plank of wood. _No_. He wasn't sure what he meant. _No, I'm bloody well not alright. No, I don't want you to be here_.

"Kudo-kun . . ." _Haibara_. Kami, he'd never before appreciated how small she was, he'd been. "I will assume for the moment that your excuses downstairs had some modicum of truth In them, but until you tell us what that one truth is, we can't help you."

One truth. They were quoting his own lines back at him. And he wasn't even sure that he knew what that one truth was any more. After everything that had happened he wasn't certain that truth hadn't just shattered under the pressure of keeping the universe intact.

"Shinichi-kun, if you could just tell us what the matter is. Even when you came to me in the pouring rain asking me for help you weren't so scared."

When that had happened, even then he had been human, at least. Now he wasn't even that. _I'm something less. Something wrong. Not-human. Not-right._

_I could have done it. That thing, back there. Could have. ._ .

He didn't realize that the last few things that he had thought he had been thinking had instead been coming out as a garbled babble of words. Only the silence told him, that and the increase in their heartbeats, the faster breathing and many other signs that meant that the two watching him were growing steadily more worried.

"Kudo kun." The little-girl voice held tones in it that a true little girl like Ayumi-chan would never be able to imitate. Such a complexity of contrasting emotion behind the hopefully blank facade, now shattered in the face of Kudo Shinichi. "Kudo-kun, look at me."

_No, no_. He couldn't. Just couldn't. _Can't_.

"Kudo Shinichi. If there is anyone else in this house who knows more of monsters than you or I, I would be very surprised. And not between just you and I, but I highly doubt that you _are_ one."

"But you don't know that!"

"Then show us, Kudo-kun!"

"You-"

"Let us be the judges here, Shinichi-kun."

"Fine!"

Throwing his hands up into the air at the hopelessness of the situation, he turned around. Knowing where they were simply by sound, he looked straight at them and opened his eyes.

The room was dark. He had known that when he had rushed in. It was one of the reasons why he'd chosen the place, as somewhere that was being ignored. But now he found that he was looking at Agasa-hakase and Haibara and _seeing_ them, not just their shadows, but them. He recognized first the unfocused way that they were looking at him. The worry in their faces before uncertainty took over. But not fear. Why weren't they afraid?

"Kudo-kun . . . what happened?"

Couldn't they see? Couldn't they even see at all?

Of course they couldn't. They were in the dark, literally and figuratively. He grimaced, unwittingly showing fang.

There was silence. That is to say, no one spoke. No one needed to; their body language said everything for him. They had seen. He hadn't even realized what he'd been doing, and he had showed them.

"Why are you still here?" He enunciated every word carefully, voice _not_ shaking, _not_ with fear or self-disgust. _Not_. "I'm the same as he is – the same as the murderer. I could do that, now. Why – why aren't you –"

This time, it wasn't words that stopped him. It was the looks on their faces. Sympathy mixed with pity and frustration.

"Kudo-kun. . ." A sigh from Haibara, and there was definitely frustration there. "Three things. Firstly, I will reiterate what I said before – you aren't a monster. You can be highly irritating and irrational, but hardly a monster. Another thing is that you aren't like the murderer, Kudo-kun. I don't know what exactly is going on here, but that man chose to do what he did and become more of a monster than I would ever believe you to be. You are not the same as him. The last thing is the reason why we are still here." Shinichi started, not only from the reminder of choices. The truth was, in a roundabout way, he had chosen this. He stared at the woman in a child's body as she spoke again. "We aren't afraid of you, Kudo-kun. I don't know what might have happened to make you afraid of yourself, but whatever it was, it didn't change you far enough to change who you are."

"But-"

A half-amused and very irritated light brown eyebrow rose. "We trust you, Kudo-kun. No matter what, if the person who changed you had wanted you to be like a murderer, then they would have attempted to brainwash you or something similar. In this one case, fear is your ally."

She shrugged, as if what she had just said was nothing. Shinichi blinked and backed away until his back was against the wall, leaning against the support. All that h was just wanted to slide down and simply be for a few hours, to think and to sleep and to forget. But the very fact of where he was forbade that. Now, at least, he was regaining enough of his calm to remember that Hattori had trusted him like this, too. He hadn't asked any questions, hadn't freaked out the way he had. Of course, there was also the small matter of Hattori not being on the receiving end, but that mattered little. What mattered was that what Haibara had said was true.

Doki. Doki.

He listened to his heartbeat grow calmer with his eyes closed, aware of the two people watching him, trusting him. One minute passed, then two. Then he pushed himself away from the wall. He didn't quite meet the gazes seeking him as he took his first couple of steps back towards the doorway, though. He did, however, pause hesitantly as he passed them, saying two words.

"Thank you."

He closed his eyes again and tried to force himself to relax or tense up or fix whatever had snapped to make him change so much. Kami knew he couldn't go back out there like this. It didn't take long for him to be able to tell that it wasn't getting him anywhere fast, but at least once he was back in the lit corridor his eyes seemed like they were back to normal. Every so often a detail would jump out at him as if he was wearing new glasses, but other than that, nothing too bad.

He was, at least, able to go back to the room where the man had died and not feel like he was about to throw up. Even if he did keep stealing glances at Haibara. Especially because she would just raise an eyebrow, or ask him if he needed anything, or simply just smiled at him. It wasn't one of those smiles that lit up the whole face just because it was _him_ looking at her that he would get from Ran, but just something to tell him that he was still trusted. No matter what.

The rest of the 'investigation' passed without any more incidents that were quite as bad as that one, but by the end of it, Shinichi was ready to do almost (_almost_) anything to get out and just go home. He didn't even care if it was to the Mori's as Conan, but it was getting frustrating. Every time he tried to go anywhere with his clever cover story, the suspect would attempt – and so succeed, being the only other one who knew the truth of what had happened – to subvert his audience. All in all, things might have worked better if the aim had been to frame someone else instead of create an alternate scenario for murder, but things like that could hardly be helped. He could hardly let the monster get away with what he'd done.

Sometimes he felt like he had taken a massive leap of intuition, a new way of looking at things. Then it was two steps back and dumped on his rear. Yet he hadn't solved so many cases, become a famous high school detective and become targeted by the Black Organization for nothing. Just a few hours after sunset, they were all back in the room where it had all started, Shinichi with the expected smug, confident and, above all, _knowing_ look in his eyes that made things clear to all who saw that the culprit was going _down_.

The story that he had concocted went as follows; the suspect, more deranged than completely sane, had sent out letters to the two closest and most famous detectives in the region – namely, Kudo Shinichi and Mori Kogoro. It seemed that the original plan had been to use one of their group as a sort of bait for the police, the suspect using intricate equipment to create a scenario that fitted in with his delusions that the mythical creatures of the night, vampires, were real. When a new victim presented himself, however, the opportunity had apparently been too much to pass by; the innocent had been killed to attract the optimum amount of attention, resulting in a case that would be solved by two famous detectives and the police as one of extra-natural origin. "This," Shinichi had said with a smirk, "was his greatest failing. He thought that he could go up against the likes of me and win." That, of course, had earned a glare and an insistence that there was in fact another famous detective in the room. Shinichi had just smirked again and said something adequately ambiguous about the man's talent – or lack thereof.

Now, as he neared the end of the mostly true story, he noticed the amount of fidgeting and nervous ticks that the suspect had developed. He almost, might have grinned. Maybe he would, later. Now, however, he focused on the lead-up to the statement everyone had come to expect. He finished his final deductions with the same care as he would any case, never mind that this one was more than a little unconventional. Finally, he got to the end.

"There's no doubt about it, Murderer-san. I think that anyone in this room could say it." Turning to the man, he swung a finger down to point in a perhaps unnecessarily dramatic gesture that he found oddly reassuring. "It's you – Unobo-san!"

Reactions ranged from reluctant acceptance to horror to gratified smiles that the monster was caught at last and just sheer relief.

It was one of Megure-keibu's men who actually put the handcuffs on the man – monster – murderer. Unobo sneered at him as he was being led out, the polite masks ripped away. As soon as it was certain that no one would see, however, the sneer turned into something darker, with more than a hint of true fang hidden in with the rest of his grimace-like expression and a definite opaque gleam to preternatural eyes. Shinichi swallowed, remembering that this must have been what he looked like back in the dark room with the professor and Haibara, but glared coldly back. He couldn't afford any less.

_On the other hand, perhaps not reacting at all hadn't been the best thing to do_, he reflected as the other's sneer turned into a downright _leer_.

He was walking back into the hall with his hands stuffed into his pockets, more than willing to get out of the place as fast as he could, when he looked around.

"Hey, ojisan. Where's Ran?"

Kogoro snorted. "Where do you think? The case is closed." His eyes flicked towards the stairs. "She went to get her stuff packed up again now that it doesn't have to stay how it was for the investigation."

He nodded absently. He'd been silly. Of course she would. It was just the sort of thing that Ran would do. Perfectly normal. So why was he -?

He froze. Something was _wrong_. Dreadfully wrong. It was a mixture of small noises, smells and hunches. Sight, when something just seemed different and wrong and-

_Oh, sh- !_

Damn, that was _blood_ he was smelling now! A smell he would never be able to mistake, and not just because of the way the pain from earlier chose just that moment to return with the expectant ache of what he knew had to be _hunger_. A hunger he ignored. It was so easy it was stupid, really. He just had to remember whose it was, what the stakes were.

It was Ran's blood. Ran was in danger.

Everything else wa meaningless. It didn't matter where the power came from, so long as it was there, and right now he was running, as fast as he could without crashing into walls, seeing, just to make sure that he wasn't wrong, to assimilate every one of the smallest details with preternatural eyes. Fangs out in the adrenaline and he was lucky that no one else was in his path, because they would have gotten a full frontal view of a Very Pissed Off Vampire Detective. As it was, he practically crashed into the room like a storm of enraged Shinichi, knocking the bloodsucker bodily from his friend – his _Ran_.

He snarled at the other, taking undue pleasure from the surprise that his arrival had caused. Not, he realized, because he was there, but because of what he'd done. His attitude. He restrained a laugh at the thought that he would hold back anything, even scared and unsure as he was, to save her.

His anger flared, but died down to flickering embers when he remembered that he was still holding her in his arms. Calm came to replace ire, half-sanity taking over instinct by far faster than it would have done if he had not had a half-conscious reminder of his humanity right there in his arms.

As the police entered after him, he belatedly realized that he could have prevented this. Should have remembered. Never taking his eyes off of the other man even once, he calmly asked a nearby officer for their handcuffs. The officer gave them to him, curious, tried to watch as Shinichi deftly took a couple of splinters of wood from one of the many resources and attached them to the cuffs. Then, with a grim determination, went over to the monster who had caused the whole mess and forcefully clasped the metal-and-wood onto his wrists. He took a moment to smirk in the idiot's face, then turned around, making a show of putting a hand to the nape of his neck in embarrassment for the audience.

"All done!"

And it was. Unobo was going to jail, and as long as he was kept in those cuffs, he wouldn't be getting out any time soon. Ran was safe – she'd have to get that neck would seen to without him around, but she was safe. The case was closed. So now, all that was left to do was to go home. Hopefully without any further incident. First stop being, of course, Agasa-hakase's.

The next half-hour was filled with packing, paperwork and the joyless task of evading any and all questions. Not to mention the growing-by-the-minute hunger that made his answers and excuses more and yet more irritated and bad tempered.

By the time Ran asked – all but pleaded, really – for him to ride back with her, it was fear for her safety that made him snap at her and run over to the professor's beetle to get in the back while Haibara took the front with Hakase. They might trust him, but it was safer that way.

It really was.

That ride back was his longest ever.

o0oV0o0Vo0o

AN: Whoo Hoo! I hope you don't think I was too choppy near the end there. I enjoyed freaking Kudo out again. It was interesting to write Haibara, too - she's pretty simple character-wise compared to a lot of them, but when it came to Agasa I was always hesitating. I haven't got his voice down right, I guess.

Vampire inspiration: A big one for this was the series Night World by L.J. Smith. You'll get more of their influence later on, though - next chapter maybe. Still, big influence on my views on vampires. Also big was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I watched the series from start to finish, so I could say I'm a fan. Ann Rice was read but not liked. Slight influence may be found, however. Emphasis on slight.

Note; his fangs retract, his eyes can go between better-than-normal vision and vampiric, he has still got his soul, excellent sense of smell, balance and any other sense is heightened. Instincts take over at times. Poor Shin-chan... We'll be addressing this next chapter in more detail.


	4. The Cure and the Curse

The Vampire Detective

Chapter 4 – The Cure and the Curse

Disclaimer - Recognisable characters not mine.

_Oh, What a tangled web we weave when first we learn to deceive. . ._

By the end of the ride back, it seemed that his hunger pangs were about as bad – if not worse than – the spasms caused by the change between Conan and Kudo. Both other occupants of the car frequently looked back at him with concern evident in their eyes.

He had no doubt of what they _thought_ he was going through. The funny thing was, he didn't think that they'd even contemplated what was actually going on, even though they knew.

The truth, which he had always thought of as being in a singular sense, seemed to have found a sort of perverse pleasure in messing up his, Kudo Shinichi's, life as much as possible. So far he had been shrunk into a kid's body, made to go to grade school, hide out in Ran's – _Ran's!_ – house and be on the run from a massive criminal organization. _So, when it all comes down to it_, he thought with a barked laugh, _I probably should have expected something crazy like this to come along and mess my life up further sooner or later_.

Agasa-hakase glanced back at him in the mirror, worried.

By the time the professor pulled up in the drive and parked the beetle, Shinichi had just enough energy to get out of the car and stumble towards the door.

"Here, Shinichi-kun. Let me help you."

"No!"

He pushed himself away and fell down into a chair to get his breath back.

"Kudo-kun. As you are right now, you should accept help as it is given to you."

He sent her a withering Look. Which was subsequently not as powerful as it should have been due to the pain that interrupted it.

" 'As I am right now'? And what might you think that is?" He knew he was being sarcastic, but he couldn't help it. It was one way to deal with the pain.

Haibara scowled. "You know perfectly well. Though how you've managed the last couple of hours is anybody's guess. You seemed to be on the brink of changing various times, no matter what seems to have happened to you."

And with that, his world turned quiet and turbulent. "You don't even know what _did_ happen."

"Does it matter?" The question was sharp, but not cutting. "We both know that you haven't changed where it's important. You didn't seem to have much ease talking about things earlier, and I doubt that your opinion has changed so much in such a short time."

" 'How' and 'what' are two different things," he muttered, putting a hand up to his face. He closed his eyes in an effort to stay calm which was cruelly subverted by a new wave of pain hitting him without warning. Black stars invaded his vision and he could all but see Haibara's gaze narrow on him. He could definitely hear her heart speed up, her breathing smooth out purposefully.

To his surprise and relief, there weren't any further admonishments or pleas to let them help him; she only sighed. Then, turning around, she stalked away. He followed her footsteps up until she started to go down the steps to her lab, bemused by how little-girl legs could allow such an adult presence. Agasa-hakase sighed and fidgeted in her absence.

A short time later, a small package dropped into his lap. Startled, he opened his eyes only to see the professor just as confused as he was and a distinctly uncomfortable looking Haibara who was looking pointedly at the item he was holding. He took a closer look and almost dropped it.

"I'm not an idiot, Kudo-kun. Whether it actually is real and the pain you are feeling isn't just in your head or not, even if this all something you've made yourself believe somehow, if that will help you, then. . ."

His eyes widened and his mouth opened – though whether it was to deny one of the claims or to say thank you or even anything else, he didn't know. Belatedly, he realized that once again, his vision had sharpened – as well as his teeth. Going slightly red in the face from a strange mixture of both embarrassment and shame, he carefully opened the plastic and did as his new instincts insisted. He sighed as the last taste of cold copper and cherries slid down his throat, knowing that at least for a while now, at least for a while he could be around people and not have to be in pain or be scared for their safety. His body relaxed, his muscles lost their tension, his thoughts stopped whirling and his emotions calmed.

"Er. . . thanks." He wasn't entirely sure what else to say. "I feel better now," he said rather lamely.

"So I see." Her voice was deliberate, considering every ramification of the new development the same way that he would a new piece of evidence in a case. Shinichi found that, unsurprisingly, it wasn't a feeling he particularly liked. Especially when the next thing she did was come at him with a needle. At his raised speculative eyebrow, she elaborated. "I'll need some of your blood, Kudo-kun. We need to see what exactly has happened to you."

Shinichi half-glared at her, even though his heart wasn't really all that into it. She _had_ just helped him after all. "I already know what happened to me."

"You may, but we don't. Please."

"Shinichi-kun. . ."

"_Fine_! But no needles."

"Kudo-kun. How am I supposed to get a blood sample from you if you won't allow me to use the needle? You were fine with it before."

Shinichi snorted. "Before, yeah. Maybe. Now? I wouldn't risk it." He glanced around nervously until his eyes rested on a spare vial sitting out of the way on one of the tabletops. Walking over to it, he glanced back at the professor. "Ne, hakase. You mind if I use this?" At the professor's still befuddled and wide-eyed negative, he fought down a bout of nausea at the thought of what he was planning. Tongue flicking over teeth, affirming what he already knew. A flash of fangs later and he was pressing his bleeding wrist down over the top of the vial, waiting for the inevitable. _One, two, three, four, five. . . done_. Reaching for a nearby towel, he damped it under a tap and cleared the excess blood away from the now unblemished skin. Once he was finished, he gestured towards the sample of his blood.

"That was what you wanted, right?"

They were staring at him. He'd shown them what he was, drunk the blood that Haibara had thrust at him, he'd even come back to them back there as _Shinichi_ and it was _this_ that rendered them speechless.

Then again, all of the other things could be explained away. Haibara had thought he was going mental, and _he_ had thought that someone had drugged him with one of the temporary cures at first. This. . . this was something you couldn't really refute. He had bled, and then he had stopped bleeding. The wound had just closed in seconds, right in front of their eyes. Not to mention the fact that he had caused it with his teeth – his _fangs_.

"Well," he said in what he hoped appeared to be a conversational tone, "at least now I don't have to worry about leaving Ran again."

"But – Shinichi-kun! We don't really know that!"

"And how do you know – you said you trusted me. Can't you trust me on this?"

"But Kudo-kun, for all we know this really might be simply a temporary reaction. How would you like it if, by this time tomorrow, you were back to Conan again? Having to live with both what you now are and the false promises you gave?"

Shinichi whirled away from the tabletop, anger lighting in his eyes. His fists clenched.

"You have no idea! It's different. I'm different – all of me. I _feel_ it. I don't even think that the same rules even really apply to me anymore." He gave a bark of mirthless laughter and ran a hand though his hair. "I know it with my head and with – well, I just _know_ it."

"But Conan- "

"Dammit, Haibara! Will you just give it a rest? Conan's dead!" He started to pace the living room/ laboratory. "He probably died around noon. Sometime around then. Hell, it's easier thinking about it – about things like that than the other way." Another bark of laughter escaped him, this time with a hysterical edge. "At least if I think about it like that, it's not as if I'll be having to go to my own funeral."

"Shinichi-kun, don't talk like that."

"Why shouldn't I? It's the _truth_."

Throwing his arms up into the air to make his point, he went back to his pacing.

o0o0Vo0o0oVo0o

For Mori Ran, the ride back had been almost as painful as it had been for Kudo Shinichi, except for her the pain was in her feelings instead of physical.

_Shinichi_. . . Shinichi was back. And he had said that he might be staying this time.

So why wasn't he here, with her? Why had he just unfeelingly pushed her away, when he must have known that she needed to know that he wasn't going to just disappear again?

Mori Ran was certainly no fool. She knew Shinichi, idiot detective geek that he was, and he hadn't been properly himself all of the time he'd been there. Oh, sure – it had definitely _been_ Shinichi. It was like Kazuha-chan had said. She had just known, the minute he walked in through that door, that it was him. But even then, something had been off.

Her eyes drifted over to where Conan-kun had sat during the ride there, and another sea of worries claimed her.

_It must have been something really big to have scared him_, she thought to herself. _Conan-kun's. . . like Shinichi. Nothing really gets past him. He looks through everything logically, thinking that what he sees as obvious should be obvious to everyone else, too_. _Whatever scared him, I sure wouldn't like to see what it was._

And yet. . . it had been Shinichi who had looked scared and frightened when he had looked over the crime scene. Pale. Almost as if he'd seen a ghost.

But Kudo Shinichi didn't believe in ghosts, did he?

Ran suppressed a shiver at the direction her thoughts were taking. _Ghosts. I hate ghost stories_. As if anything like that might have happened, anyway. Shinichi was usually the one _laughing_ at ghost stories. She'd never known him to actually be affected by any of them.

Besides. Agasa-hakase said afterwards that Shinichi had just forgotten to say something to Conan-kun. There wasn't anything wrong with that, was there? Apart from the fact that she'd heard raised voices and she couldn't actually remember seeing a phone on Shinichi or Conan-kun at any time.

For that matter, Conan had just . . . _left_. Again. Agasa, Ai-chan and Unobo-san had all said that Conan had said he was going before he left, but he hadn't said a word to _her_. Despite what Shinichi had said, it felt too much like he had left her. For those long hours before Shinichi had appeared back in her life yet again, she had worried, almost more about Conan that about the murderer undeniably still in the house. It hadn't helped when she had been told that the boy had given warning before leaving; just like Shinichi, he didn't need help to get into trouble. Trouble usually found him.

She sighed, glanced out of the window for a moment, and started, surprised. She had been so caught up in her thoughts that she hadn't even noticed the journey entering its final stages back into Tokyo. It wouldn't be long now and they would be in Beika again. _Not long. . . not long, and I can . . ._

"Oi, Ran. You alright?" Mori Kogoro didn't take his eyes off the road but to check in the mirror, but she could tell that he was worried. After all, she hadn't really spoken since she had gotten into the car.

"What? Oh, yeah. . . I'm fine."

"You sure?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Just – worried."

"Hmph."

He didn't say anything else, but she knew that he understood. At least, some of it. For the rest of the ride back, silence left the two each to their own thoughts and suspicions.

_Just. . . still be there, Shinichi. No matter what, please still be there. Like you promised. You said you'd still be there, didn't you? So please. I have so many things I want to say_. . .

She remembered the last time she has said that, the last time she seen Shinichi. Not just talked to him, not just heard him, but actually _seen_ him. It had been the longest time he had been with her ever since he had all but disappeared.

She still hadn't been able to get any real answers. Only vague hints. He. . . he'd _gone. __Again_. She'd tried and she'd tried to keep hold of him, make him stay just a little longer, but he'd slipped through her fingers like smoke. Like he'd never been there at all. . .

But he had been there this time, hadn't he? And he hadn't just vanished into smoke, either. She knew where he was, or rather, where he should be.

She would _not_ let him get away from her again.

Coming back to herself abruptly at the stopping of the car, she helped her father put all of their things away, absently wondering at the fact that Shinichi had taken Conan's things with him. It wasn't as though they had taken up that much space, but he had insisted. Said that he knew where the kid had got to, so he should be able to get his stuff to him.

_So what if I've got no excuse?_ She huffed as she took one last thing back indoors. _I shouldn't need one, anyway! All I need to do is say that I want to see Shinichi again. And I will. I just can't wait until tomorrow, that's all_.

Calling to her father that she was going over to the professor's, she headed back towards the door, ignoring irritated complaints coming from the office wondering when he'd get dinner. Other things could wait. It wasn't too late, after all, and she just wanted to –

She turned the corner onto the street where Shinichi and Agasa-hakase lived, sparing a hopeful glance at the Kudo house. Not a single sign of life, yet again, but at least it looked a little more well kept than the first few months in which the occupant had gone missing. The garden was still overgrown, though. None of the lights were on, the main signal that Shinichi was still at Agasa's. Turning decisively on her heel, Ran stalked over to the front drive where the professor's yellow beetle was parked, glancing curiously in when she found that none of their things had actually been taken in yet.

_What could possibly have distracted them that badly?_ She wondered, finger trailing on the window-edge of one of the car doors. She shook her head, bewildered. _Whatever it is, I hope it's something I can help with, and not just another case_.

She let herself in. Not simply because of years of friendship with the professor, but the door had been left open and left wide enough to get through without having to open it any further. She was shutting it so that no one else could come in uninvited, when she was startled just before she could shut the door properly. For a moment, her hand froze on the handle, thinking that she had been discovered, but then, when the commotion didn't stop, she let go and carefully made her way down the hall.

That was Shinichi. . . shouting? And there was the professor, and Ai-chan. She couldn't quite hear them at first, but as she got nearer what they were saying got clearer, until she was right outside the lab and could hear what being said normally just as well as what Shinichi was shouting.

Just as her triumphant _He really is here!_ echoed in her head coupled with concern for whatever had angered him that badly, she heard the tail end of what he'd been saying, and her world fell out from underneath her.

"_. . . just give it a rest? Conan's dead!_"

Ran thought that her legs were about to buckle underneath her, but fell against the wall instead.

_No_, she thought. _Conan can't be dead. I saw him. I know I did. And so did Shinichi_ _-_ She gasped. _Shinichi. . .!_

But he had now started to pace, and apparently no one had noticed her out in the hallway. Unheeding of anyone listening in, he continued in the same horrible vein, if not a worse one.

"_He probably died around noon. Sometime around then. Hell, it's easier thinking about it – about things like that than the other way_."

_No. No, please no_. But Shinichi was _there_ – Conan couldn't be dead.

"_At least if I think about it like that, it's not as if I'll be having to go to my own funeral_."

. . _. _What?!_ Then – Conan really is – was – _is_ (he can't be dead, just can't) Shinichi. But then why are they talking as though _Shinichi's_ dead, _too_?! _She shook her head, not noticing tears of confusion and hurt rolling down her cheeks. If that was the truth, then he had been lying to her. Conan – Shinichi, that is, Agasa, and even _Ai_. If it was true, then what did it even mean? It didn't make sense.

"_Shinichi-kun, don't talk like that_."

_Please don't_.

"_Why shouldn't I? It's the _truth."

It couldn't be. It just couldn't. _Whatever you're saying, it can't be true, it just can't_. . .

Haibara Ai sighed. "_Kudo-kun, you are standing right in front of me. You are talking – no, arguing with me, not to mention the rather important point that you just healed. Dead bodies don't heal_."

"_And living ones shouldn't heal that _quick," Shinichi groused.

Behind the feeble screen of the door, Ran frowned. He hadn't been hurt, had he? He hadn't seemed wounded before. Winded, maybe. Wounded? No. Just what had _happened_ since she'd seen him last?

"_Shinichi-kun, forgive us if we don't think that that is quite evidence enough. I mean_-"

"_Then what _is_, hakase_?"

Lost. That was what he sounded like now. Lost and directionless. Shinichi wasn't supposed to sound lost. He was supposed to have all the answers. There was a thump of material as he sat down.

"_I – I don't know where to go with this. I've just got nothing go on. No clues or evidence – it's not a case. It's just me, what I am, now_." He gave a heavy sigh. "_It's hardly as though my dad would have notes on something like this stashed away in the attic_."

But – what were they talking about? What did Shinichi think he was? Just what did that have to do with Conan-kun, and what wouldn't his father have known about? What was going _on_ here?

"_Shinichi-kun. ._ ."

And they knew about it, didn't they? Hakase. . .

"_Kudo-kun . . . we're doing the best we can. At this early stage, there isn't much else we can do_."

. . . and Ai.

"_I know, I know_."

"_But – you know, it's only natural to get nervous and worried at a time like this, when everything in your world has changed, when you don't know who to trust. . . I, just like you, understand well that feeling, Kudo-kun_."

Shinichi laughed nervously. "_Gee, thanks, Haibara. Was that supposed to make me feel _better?"

The girl snorted in an way that wasn't very little-girl-like. "_It was supposed to remind you that you're still normal. Or at least somewhat. I believe I have heard it said once that many times those who look like monsters are in fact the ones with the most human hearts, and humans have the worst monsters inside of them_."

"_That's certainly true_."

It was something that Ran could relate to as well, with all of the murders that happened around her father. . . no, around Conan-kun, who was. . . Shinichi. What she didn't understand was how that could relate to Shinichi now. Shinichi wasn't a monster. Of course, she had read about how some oni could disguise themselves as humans, but that was Shinichi in there, it definitely was. She was sure of it.

"_But what happens when the monsters – your demons – are real? What if you don't know how to fight them? What if you – what if you can't?_"

"_Then you don't fight them. It's as simple as that. You let other people do that for you. You let other people keep you human when you feel like everything else is lost, because they still treat you like you should be. Like you're worth something_."

Well, that was odd. Not the oddest by far, but odd. That a seven year old girl could speak like that as if from experience. . .

Shinichi now hissed in a breath as if in pain, stood back up and started to pace again.

"_I don't feel all that great about being treated as if I'm worth something right now. What then? Because right now I feel lousy. I can't - I couldn't tell anyone about this. No-one. If anything, it's worse than the whole Conan fiasco, because then at least I had a really good reason to hide it, but now I'd only be able to say that I was scared everyone would come after me with stakes or something!_"

. . . Stakes?!

Strangely enough, Agasa-hakase started to laugh. "_Really, Shinichi-kun! Instead of your father's old notes, you've been reading too many English classics. I highly doubt that everything you might or might not have read in Dracula was true_."

Ran's thoughts froze and stuck at the last sentence. Several things clicked into place amidst the numbness where they could not have before.

"_I was saying that hypothetically. Of course I'm not stupid enough to think they'd use stakes. No, first would come the news that Kudo Shinichi is still alive, then they'd come after me with snipers, _then_ would come the stakes. I think_."

"_We don't even know if you have any sort of adverse reaction, or even what it would do to you if you did. You shouldn't jump to conclusions_."

"_Hah. I have my suspicions_," he announced quietly to the room of three and hallway of one. "_Plus, why should_ they _think to look at science before myths? You should know better than anyone that they'll even listen to the most outlandish myths and legends. I mean, _mermaids_? And those ones weren't even_ _real_."

Ai huffed.

But she didn't deny what he had been saying.

"_Besides, I could never tell her, anyway_."

"_Her?_"

A lump formed in Ran's throat in suspicion.

"_I couldn't – just couldn't. It'd be too – too cruel. I only just came back again! Dammit, but she hates this kind of thing, you know that. Maybe. . . maybe I'll get around to telling her about Conan, but not this. Never this. I'll leave, she'll never be able to find out-_ " He cut himself off from the rest of the sentence and drew a deep breath. To calm himself. A luxury that she didn't feel she had the right to. Tears were already flowing freely, unbidden, down her cheeks yet again. "_I don't want to see her look at me like that_."

How could he say something like that so calmly? Something that said that he didn't even trust her with that much? Something that said that he didn't want to see her scared, no matter what. Even if she was scared of _him_.

"_Shinichi-kun, I don't think_-"

Shinichi stopped abruptly, surprising them.

"_I need to go home. I just. . ._"

"_Then go, Kudo-kun. We aren't stopping you_."

But – to go out, he would have to go through the hall and _past her_. Her, who had heard everything. Knew everything, now. Her, who was standing, leaning against the wall that was the only thing keeping her upright. Her, with tears flowing freely and with puffy eyes and –

"I don't want to see her look at me like that." I'm not going to. I'm just not. I won't. No matter what, I'll trust him – they do, and that means I should even more, because I know him better, known him longer, known him closer. . .

The door opened.

Without thinking, she looked up.

Without thinking, she saw his face, and he saw _her_.

"Shinichi!"

His eyes widened and brightened and almost glowed and his breathing went faster and looked so scared and upset and then –

Then, he just wasn't there anymore. Where he had been, air settled back into place with a slight breeze, the door swinging on its hinges behind him from when he'd run. Run like a startled rabbit or a deer in the headlights. Ran so fast that the eye couldn't really keep up with him. Ran just as Ran was trying to now, to go after the stupid detective idiot who'd gotten himself into deep water now and damn him, didn't he know he was supposed to stay put?

But she wasn't going anywhere – or at least nowhere fast. Agasa's hand was on her shoulder, and she hadn't noticed that she had finally slumped onto the floor. From the doorway of the other room, Haibara Ai –(or was it?)- watched with what an untrained observer would call dispassion, but what a friend might call concern while Mori Ran wept and next door, as quiet as the dead, at an equally slow pace, the lights in the Kudo house turned themselves on, one by one.

o0o0oVo0o0oVo0o0o

AN: Dun dun DUN! Bet you didn't see that one coming. Ah, what fun it is. This was planned from the get-go. Though to be honest I didn't think it'd take up an entire chapter. But there you go. Out in under a week, I think. Just goes to show how much I like the story. References made to manga here, with big spoilers for two arcs. Ran's POV was difficult at first, but got easier. It certainly made the conversation harder. Speaking of which, dialogue in italics meant that it was what she was hearing through the door. Anything heard that wasn't _over_heard was said normally. (last word spoken, duh.)

Not the end, but certainly a beginning. Of sorts.


	5. Conversations

The Vampire Detective

Chapter 5 – Conversations with dead people

Disclaimer – I lynched 'em on the way out of school. Honest.

_Please keep out of direct sunlight – commonly found on packaging. _

Ran didn't end up getting very much sleep that night, but it was really only what she expected after the events leading up to her discovery of the truth.

Morning had greeted her with a pounding headache and a sick feeling at the pit of her stomach. She had barely been able to get up, dressed and make breakfast for herself and her father. It had been bad enough that she had forgotten halfway through that she didn't need to cook for three; Conan-kun wasn't here anymore. Shinichi was back. It was a school day.

Of course, her father had asked the school to allow her a week's leave just in case they has needed to be away for that long, so she didn't strictly have to return just yet. But the fact was that school, as annoying as it could sometimes be, was normal. She very much needed a large dose of what some called normal right now.

She ended up eating only a few bites of breakfast, not having very much appetite. Almost immediately after, she made her excuses and goodbyes and set off, hoping that she hadn't forgotten anything.

Without thinking, her feet carried her down the route she'd always taken before Conan had arrived and Shinichi had disappeared, past Shinichi's house. More than a mansion really, she often thought. But it was his house, his home.

The lights were off. All of them. The windows shut and the curtains drawn. There was likely not a single ray of sunlight penetrating to the inside of the Kudo residence.

Ran sighed, fighting the urge to shiver at the remembrance of last night. She had promised herself. . . promised Shinichi that she wouldn't be afraid of him, right? Then no matter what, she wouldn't _be_ afraid. Even if she wanted to be. Because it was _Shinichi_.

She carried on walking, giving herself a stern reminder not to jump at any more shadows or stop at any other places for any reason. If she kept starting at every small thing, she would be late for school, and then people would know that something was the matter with her. And if word got around, then somehow Shinichi would find out from someone and then he'd think that she was unhappy because of him. But she wasn't. She was and she wasn't. She was angry and upset and annoyed and disappointed and she wanted to _hit_ him the next time she saw him, but –

She stopped, and it was as if the world froze around her. All except for one figure, standing tall and alone a short distance away on the sidewalk, school bag leaning against the wall and hands stuffed into pockets, face towards the wind that was blowing his hair back and away from his serious face.

_Shi. . . Shinichi? C-could it be? But. . . isn't he. . . so, it can't be him, can it? Right?_

The figure still hadn't moved, not even the hands in the pockets. Hesitant yet eager, Ran took nervous steps forward, holding her bag in front of her with both hands.

"Shinichi?"

His head shot towards her, an almost unconscious gesture, because the next moment his eyes were widening and his fits clenching on the fabric of his pockets in tempered panic.

"R-Ran!" And in an instant down went the mask of pleasant surprise, unheeding, as if last night's events had never happened at all. "Ne, Ran? Are you all right? You look a little peaky."

Ran squeaked, taking a step back in shock at how close he was. There was been that look on his face, the one where he looked so clueless, concerned. . . for her. Yet now, she didn't miss the flash flood of a pained flinch at her step back. It was gone as soon as it had appeared, though. She waved her hands in front of her face and gave a laugh of nerves.

"I'm fine! Just tired, that's all. That case lasted 'til late, didn't it? We didn't get back until it was really dark."

That. . . was _definitely_ a flinch. A slight darkening of shadows under his eyes before it all went back to a smile that looked like it was supposed to be easy with the force of a whiplash.

"Ah – yeah, it was, huh?" Hands came out of pockets at long last and crossed each other so that he was holding the back of his neck. "Look, I'm sorry. For last night. I was really rude and I shouldn't have shoved you or anything and –"

"I understand."

He blinked.

"Eh? You do?"

She nodded in a vaguely absent way, hand going without thought up to her neck, where she still had a bandage over the cut from when she had been taken hostage momentarily. _Actually, all I remember is being held in a really strong grip and then . . ._then_ being rescued by – Shinichi_. It had all been rather mixed up in her memories, but she had figured some things out on her own, without any help. Once she knew the truth, it wasn't too hard to guess.

"Yeah. . ."

"Hey, Ran?" He was in front of her again. "You sure you're okay?" His eyes were staring into hers, familiar and yet strangely not, sharper, if anything, than before. His hand had risen and now against her forehead, she felt the flush rise to her cheeks.

"Ack! I mean, ah . . . um . . .! _Cold_."

His hand froze.

"I mean, sorry, it's just that – it's nothing!"

"Really?"

"Y-yes!"

She was embarrassingly aware of how her face was getting redder and redder as minutes wore on and he still hadn't moved. Apparently, he had also noticed this, because the next moment he was backed away over to the wall where he was hastily picking up his satchel and the next time she saw his face there were two definite pink spots on his cheeks.

Now in silence, the two started to walk. Both uncomfortable with the uncharacteristic silence, the pace was slow and minutes slipped by like hours, yet when the silence was broken, it felt like hardly any time at all.

"Ne, Shinichi." He didn't say anything, but his head turned her wa. Somehow, he managed to keep walking in the same direction. "Are. . . are _you_ all right?" He didn't respond, other than to blink new shadows out of his eyes and smile. Ran swallowed and continued. "It's just – last night. Conan went missing in the morning, but you couldn't come back to us until after nightfall. Are you sure you're all right now?"

Shinichi sighed and put his hands behind his head again. "Ah, well – you know what I told you then. I was taking care of the kid. You know, glasses."

Well of course that'd been what he'd said _last night_. But it wasn't the truth, was it? She already knew what had to have happened – vaguely, of course, but he was Shinichi again after all, wasn't he?

But that also meant that he had to be deliberately _lying_ to her. She had seen him last night after overhearing all those awful things and she knew that he had certainly seen her. Why else would he look so panicked when he first saw her? He had looked so freaked before that she hadn't even been sure whether or not he would turn up at all today. But that still wasn't an excuse for lying to her when she knew that he knew that she knew the truth!

_Calm, Ran. Keep calm. You're not going to karate an explanation out of him, you're not going to shout at him, you're not going to . . . calm, just stay calm_.

"Shinichi, you don't have to _lie_."

His luck with direction running out on him at last, he tripped and almost fell, righting himself quickly.

"W-what?! I don't know what you're talking about! I – I'm not -!"

"You are, Shinichi! I'm not an idiot!"

_Calm, stay calm. Not to hit idiot detective geek. Even if he does absolutely deserve it_.

"I – I don't understand! I don't know what –"

_Argh!_ She felt like screaming in frustration as he backed away from her into the shadow of a tree, hands waving his innocence in front of his face. Instead, she forced herself to relax, taking a deep breath. He was probably right – just like always. He probably _didn't_ understand. She tried to smile but it came out a bit forced, resulting in the perverse reaction of a scared gulp.

"You. . . you don't have to lie to me. Agasa-hakase and Ai-chan told me after you left yesterday."

His eyes widened and he swallowed again, bumping into the tree as he took a further step backwards. "How – how much?"

She scowled. "Everything," she said simply, letting him stew for a while longer. "I figured some of it out for myself, though."

"Y-you did, huh?"

Ran nodded. She remembered how angry she had been when Agasa had first confirmed that Shinichi had indeed been Edogawa Conan. She also remembered how surprised and horrified she'd been when she had been told about the Black Organization. Ai-chan had stayed mostly quiet, but hadn't denied being older than she looked. They had even told her what they could about the previous day, things that she had missed out on or simply hadn't been told about before. Although that had been after a couple of rounds of hot tea to help everyone to calm down.

"So, uh – what I was saying before. _Are_ you all right?"

"Aren't you going to hit me or something? I – I thought you'd be _mad_."

"I am mad! But I decided that, stupid detective geek as you are, hitting you wouldn't do anything! You'd simply waltz into the next case you found with a bump on your head!"

He closed his eyes and gave a nervous chuckle. One hand rose up to rub at a spot on the top of his head, where she suspected he remembered being hit by her father none too many times for 'interfering'. "Heh. I suppose that's true, too."

"But _how_?

"Huh?"

She hadn't been able to hold it in any longer. She just had to know.

"How are you-? But yesterday-! And I thought . . . but you're . . . out . . . here . . ."

Slowly, Shinichi gained understanding from the disjointed sentences she was giving him. _How come you're out here in the sun when yesterday you couldn't, and weren't vampires supposed to not be able to do that?_

He started to smile – _more like smirk, in _my_ opinion_ – and with one catlike motion picked his bag up from where he'd dropped it. "Ah, now that is my most clever trick," he said as he started to walk once more.

"Clever trick? But what kind of trick could do that?"

"Majikku, _duh_."

"Mou, Shinichi! _You're_ the one who always says that that kind of stuff _isn't_ real."

He waved a hand in dismissal.

"Hn. Maybe more like _mind_ magic, then."

"What do you mean?"

" 'Clever' because I've got to do two things at once. It wouldn't work if I couldn't think in two tracks at the same time." His expression darkened. "It's a dangerous kind of concentration game. If I lose. . ." he turned his face towards the sky, eyes closed in seriousness. "Well, I'll make sure I'm not about to, won't I?"

"Don't talk like that!"

An eyed cracked open. "I just said I wouldn't let that happen, didn't I?"

"You know what I mean."

Shinichi blew out a nervous, tired yet also somewhat relieved, sigh.

"Ne, Ran. Why. . ."

"Why what, Shinichi?"

"Why are you being like this? I thought. . . for sure. . . I mean, you usually hate things like this, don't you? Why . . . why aren't you-"

"Shinichi you idiot! _Shinichi wa Shinichi_! It doesn't matter any other way, whether you're big or little or – or whatever! You're still Shinichi!"

They came to an abrupt halt as he stared at her with a strange sort of adoration mixed with hope and fear sparked to life in his eyes and grew out into some kind of idiotic grin. Sighing, Ran turned away to hide a blush of delight and embarrassment. Having started to walk again before he did, she heard him give a startled yelp and follow after with an amused smile.

oOoVoOoOoVoOo

It was his first day back at school ever since he'd been shrunk and sent to elementary if you didn't count that one day that came as a result of his first trial of the temporary cure, and there was a lot to get used to. Some of it was just natural – after all, he had been gone for nearly a year, so there was a lot to catch up on. Schoolwork was a tricky subject, as although he had tried to keep up to date on his assignments by studying from textbooks and looking over Ran's shoulder from time to time, he wasn't honestly sure where they were. In some things he was ahead (like always) and in some things he was embarrassingly behind, but none of it was taken too much notice of since he had been away anyway, it was almost expected. Some things, though, weren't so normal. He still had to get used to his heightened senses, which meant being caught off-guard every other moment by a noise from a long distance away, his vision zeroing in on something insignificant when he hadn't even been thinking about anything specific, fighting the urge to feel ill from all of the scents both good and bad assaulting him and, most importantly, the splitting headache he had started to get not long after arriving that was a result of keeping his mind on not burning to death from excessive sunburn.

Mostly, he had attempted to fade somewhat into the background because of this, finding it easier when he wasn't showered with attention. In one of his lessons, however, it had been . . . . interesting, to say the least. Just his luck to have English on his first day back. Jodie-sensei had hidden her surprise well at seeing a teenaged Shinichi in her class for the first time, but not well enough that it got past him. So she _had_ known, after all. Well, she hadn't said anything before, and there wasn't much chance she would say anything incriminating now, either. After all, it was hardly as though the Black Organization had been dissipated overnight during his change, so he was still supposed to be dead to the world. It was only the irony of the kami that while he was still moving and breathing, in many ways he _was_. He wasn't supposed to be. It was how he considered himself.

The lunch hour passed mostly quietly. The worst to happen was simply a case of minor misunderstanding. When Shinichi innocently said as he sat down with his meal that he felt absolutely starving, Ran had made a squeaking noise accompanied by her eyes widening in discomfort and pain. He had gently corrected her, telling her that he still needed to eat normally as well, and didn't she remember that he hadn't had anything at all yesterday? When she had asked about that morning, a guilty hand crept up to his neck as he confessed to being too nervous to do anything other than get washed and dressed and out of the door. Further prodding and threats revealed that he hadn't slept, either.

"That was how I managed to figure out how to go outside," he said in a low voice. "I had time to think. Time to piece things together. Time to. . . well, come to terms with things a bit. Time to figure things out."

"But what about your house? When I went by, all the windows were-"

"Insurance," he hastily put in. "Just in case the theory didn't work."

_Oh_. "I thought that maybe – maybe you were going to leave. . . I know it's stupid, but you left – I _thought_ you left before. So. . ."

"I'm not going to leave."

Her head jerked up at the final tone in his voice, the sheer determination.

"I'm not supposed to _be_ here, Ran. If you were told anything at all, then you know _they_ think I'm dead. And now, for all intents and purposes, I'm not. If I disappeared, then there'd be no last line. If they thought someone knew about them, then- " he cut off. He wasn't sure whether it was for her – and she had been getting rather nervous about the whole situation – or for him – uncomfortable as he might find discussing any such thing – or the fact that while they had found someplace at least partially quiet to sit, eat and talk, it was still a public place and anyone might be listening in. Maybe it was all three.

After that, talk had gone onto more innocuous and less perilous subjects, such as the news that Sonoko had given in detail to Ran at the first chance she'd had for the short time she had been away and the time Hattori had called Shinichi saying that he remembered there being a better detective than Shinichi, only for Shinichi to remember being the detective in question.

It was the most relaxed he had been in a long time. Aside from new distractions, he could just be himself, talk as himself, not be afraid of revealing himself to her, as she already knew all of his darkest secrets and kept them with him. There were some things they wouldn't talk about yet, but when the bell went and they had to go back to class, a strange sort of giddy peace washed through him as he realised that when he said later, I'll talk about those things later, he actually meant it, could mean it. It wasn't just another line to let him escape or an excuse to hide the truth.

The rest of the day passed with the meaningless classes of high school, the mundane wait for the clock to tick faster, the tediously easy lessons and the continuous questions coming from Sonoko.

When the bell finally rang for classes to end, he nearly sank into his desk in relief.

_Home. I can go home. I can _sleep.

Escaping to the outside with Ran in tow and Sonoko saying her goodbyes before heading over to her lift home, he was surprised to hear the familiar buzz of his phone alerting him to a message newly received. Curious and more than slightly wary, he flipped it open only to find Haibara's name come up on the screen. Opening the message, he scowled.

**Results should be ready tomorrow evening. Tests may be advisable.**

**PS, Check the fridge at home**.

Stormily, the phone was snapped shut and thrust back into its pocket. His fists clenched, showing his anger. _She didn't have any right. It's not fair!_

What he wanted more than anything right at that moment was to stalk down to Agasa's and vent his rage onto one short scientist. It was only Ran standing a pace behind and to the side of him that stopped him short before the thought could become anything more. That, and the sun beating down on him, promising something hot and crispy if he didn't ignore his ire and cool down a little.

_It's not fair. . . but life isn't fair. I didn't want this, but I did choose it_. He shivered, not wanting to think too much on that unlikely thought. _I might not like it, but it was what I needed. She knows what I am. Saw me last night. Helped me last night. Knows what I need. She was . . . only trying to help_.

"Shinichi? Are you all right?"

He let loose the unneeded tension and attempted to relax again.

"Haibara," he said shortly, letting his legs (long legs!) carry him back along the route to home, realizing with a strange jolt that it wasn't the same home as it had been a few days ago. "She dropped a few things off by my place." He glanced at her sidelong. "I messaged Agasa that I was going out today." _That I was _able_ to go out, more like_. He could just imagine the professor's worry if he had seemingly just disappeared without a trace. Haibara, for one, would not have been pleased when he walked back into the professor's lab. The girl who used to be Miyano Shiho took his promise to protect her just as seriously as she took the threat from the Black Organisation. Very seriously indeed.

"Oh."

They walked on, but nothing much more was said, the underlying tones of what he had said coming between them and easy conversation. It was obvious to both that it was a sensitive topic, even though he had made it sound innocuous enough. Right now, sensitive topics meant either his past as Edogawa Conan, now deceased, or his present as Kudo Shinichi, vampire.

The latter of which, _not_ something either of them wished to think on for too long. Ran was dealing by thinking of him as Shinichi and seeing how _Shinichi_ he still was. Shinichi was dealing with it by acting on what needed acting on and not thinking about anything that didn't necessarily need thinking on.

The wind blew in their direction as they were approaching a corner close to the Kudo residence, throwing strangely familiar scents on the breeze and the sounds of two people arguing.

"_I don't see why. . . You said. . . Not his fault. . . but he could've . . ._

_Ahou!_"

Shinichi stopped, frozen, right at the corner.

"Shinichi?"

It. . . couldn't be. Just couldn't. But it was. Here. Right here.

He had a sudden, driving urge be home. His house wasn't too far away, either. Yet getting there meant he would have to pass by the other guy, and-

"Ha-Hattori."

"What? I don't _see_ him. . ." Confused, Ran looked around.

Finally, they turned the corner, and-

"Yo, Kudo!"

_I'm gonna die I'm gonna die of_ _embarrassment. Sun, crisp me now so I don't have to_.

"Hattori-kun! Kazuha-chan! What are you two doing here?"

"Ah – Kudo here gave me a call yesterday. Told me he'd be in town today an' that I could come over."

Ran glanced suspiciously at Shinichi and warily over at Kazuha. Kazuha was smiling almost forcedly over at Ran, with one arm hooked with Hattori's, but when she caught him looking at them, her smile turned into a sharp glare, reminding him of the first time he had ever laid eyes on the girl, when she had thought that Ran was the Kudo Hattori'd been talking about. It had also, he thought not inconsequentially, been when she had acted as though she knew his secret, scaring him silly for a moment.

"That's funny," Ran said, breaking the quiet with yet more tension, "he never said anything about that to _me_."

"Oi, Kudo." Hattori was looking at him eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Don't tell me you didn't tell her _anything_."

Kazuha was now giving them both dirty looks.

He shook his head as Ran still looked between the two in confusion. "Nope," he said dejectedly, "She found everything out." _Emphasis on the 'everything'_, he added wryly in his head. Hattori curious and Kazuha gaining momentum in her glares turned their looks to Ran, and the bandage still protecting the wound on her neck. Shinichi winced; that had, albeit not directly, been his fault. _If I'd just _thought_ . . ._ "She got told. She overheard." Hopefully, nothing he was saying was too suspicious or obvious. He was starting to get worries about-

"Ka- eh. . . Kazuha knows."

He turned back to stare at his friend in incredulity. Hattori, well aware of what he must be feeling, stepped back a pace and waved his hands in the air.

"Not my fault! She walked in on me! Yesterday! While I was on the phone to _you_. It wasn't _that_ hard for her to figure a few things out. I'll give her that much credit. She's been an idiot about just 'bout everything else, though."

"_What?!_ Heiji, he- "

"Not. His. Fault. I told you a dozen times, Kazuha! Idiot."

"_I'm_ the idiot? I'm not the one who was going to come here _on their own_!"

"Me?! _I_ was the one who heard him yesterday! I think I'd _know_ if-"

"Stop!"

Everyone stared at Shinichi, with varying degrees of surprise and/or apprehension. He sighed, deflated, and held a hand up to his eyes against the sun.

"I'm getting a headache. My place. Now."

He saw Ran swallow and heard Kazuha start to protest as he started to stalk off, but Hattori grabbed her arm and practically dragged her after him. Ran followed at a slightly more sedate pace.

_The bad thing is_, he thought angrily to himself, _is that I really am getting a headache. A bad one_. Like as if there'd been a crime and he wasn't able to figure anything out _at all_ and he was _running out of time_.

Down the street, across the road, another turning and past Agasa's – he still wouldn't want to see Haibara right now, even if he _did_ feel grateful – and there, at last, was one, albeit still slightly decrepit looking, western style house – mansion, as Ran would wryly say if she was in a bad mood – that had _his_ name on it. Not, as some particular elementary schoolers liked to mispronounce, 'Etou'. It was _Kudo_. His home. His sanctuary, now.

Yards ahead of the others by way of natural speed, he opened the door and waited impatiently for them to arrive, taking his outdoor shoes off as he did. When Hattori arrived breathless from trying to keep pace and arguing with Kazuha at the same time, she mulishly tried to stay outside, only to be met by two glares – one from each of the boys. She was reluctantly toeing off her own shoes as Ran arrived. Ran, who took off her shoes without a word and moved aside when he went over to shut the door and down the blind. Turning his back to them and walking out into the hall, he could feel himself just _relaxing_ for the first time that day. He was pretty sure that it was a thing that anyone could see, too – previous experience had testified to that. It was like a weight in the back of his mind had been lifted. He was gradually and by degrees starting to feel more at home in his own skin again, his sight was going strange – even more pinpoint-sharp than before, if that could be believed – and he could smell the old scent of coffee from that morning, a last-ditch attempt at keeping himself awake. They were all changes that were either invisible or almost indistinguishable from the norm, but the sudden sharpness at the fore of his mouth was something that wouldn't be ignored. Or taken lightly.

Or, on the other hand, _should_ be taken lightly by _him_.

It was times like these he was very glad he had Haibara Ai on his side.

He wordlessly led them into the living room, all too aware of a certain amount of shaking that would be invisible to anyone other than him. _I still wouldn't want to see what effect it would have on a hot kettle, though_. Speaking of which . . .

"Drinks, anyone?"

. . . escape plan and hospitality all in one.

He patted lightly (probably silently, he thought with a grimace) over to the kitchen in his house slippers, ready to make a tea (for Ran) and get two colas (Hattori and Kazuha). But not before his little problem was dealt with.

After reading the notice on the fridge – a very Haibara-like thing telling him to not use everything up at once, as she and the professor didn't usually use blood in their experiments – and making use of one of the red packages left for him, he got rid of the evidence, made the tea and poured two colas and headed back to the others feeling more than slightly self-conscious.

With good reason, too. The living room, when he returned, was silent. Not a peaceful silent, either. Hattori was brooding, Kazuha was pouting and turned away from her friend-and-more and Ran was looking at both of them with desperation. The moment they realized he was back, Kazuha glared at him, which made Hattori glare at _her_. _If any more of this goes on, I think I'm going to get a headache of a more normal kind sometime in the very near future_.

He set the tray of drinks down on a table and sat opposite the others.

"Ne, Shinichi? Didn't you say you had a headache? Didn't you want something?"

Kazuha snorted delicately and turned away from him again. She still hadn't even touched her cola.

"_I_ don't think he even needed one, Ran-chan. If you ask _me_, he just had a little too much _sun_."

"_Kazuha_."

"I'm not taking it back, Heiji."

Hattori sighed. "For the last time, it wasn't his fault!"

Ran and Shinichi shared a look. Both blinked.

"What. . . ? What isn't Shinichi's fault?"

The Osakan girl gave him another dirty look.

"Just drop it, will you?"

"_Drop_ it? After all you went through? I don't think so."

"That was yesterday," Hattori growled under his breath, low enough that the girls sitting nearby probably couldn't hear him, but loud enough by far that Shinichi _could_. "I'm fine now."

Shinichi raised a sceptical eyebrow. He didn't know what was going on and some part of him shied away from wanting to know either way, but even though his detective friend _did_ seem perfectly fine at the moment, the slipped statement meant that something was going on and that something involved _him_.

"Heiji, I can't believe you can say that. The school doctor was at his wits' end yesterday!"

"There was nothing wrong with me, you idiot."

_Doctor?_

"You looked like you were having a heart attack Heiji! How can you just ask me to forget about something like that? I was worried about you! And then you go and try to vanish halfway through our last class and when I finally found you I – I-"

Shinichi just stared wide-eyed at the other boy, who was trying his best to disappear into the sofa. Failing, actually, as his arm was still attached via a vice grip to one of Kazuha's, who was currently this side of tearful, making the Osakan even more uncomfortable. He winced internally with sympathy – he knew what it was like to have weepy girls cry on you, especially when you were the reason they were so upset.

"Eh – Kazuha, I told you – I'm fine now. Nothing to worry about. Honest!"

"K-Kazuha-chan, I don't understand. What does that have to do with Shinichi?"

Hattori sighed, taking of his Sax cap and running a hand through his hair.

"Neechan. If I told you all this happened yesterday morning before Kudo here arrived and phoned me, you'd understand, right?"

Ran's eyes widened and she gasped, a hand going up to her mouth in mute shock. Hattori shuffled, obviously discomforted yet again. _In plain Japanese_, Shinichi translated, not without his own supply of shock, _you got backlash. Of some kind. Somehow_.

_And this is your way of telling me that Kazuha doesn't know the whole truth, especially not about Conan_. . .

He sat down heavily. _Damn. As if I didn't want things any more complicated. All I wanted was a normal life, normal friends, maybe figure out a way to tell Ran some things some day. Then I got shrunk, and my idea of normal went out the window and all I could hope for was a chance of a cure that lasted for more than a day, a way to stop the Black Organization and not get everyone I care about killed in the process_.

_Now?_ Now _all I thought I believed in has been tossed out the window and 'normal' passed us two turnings back. I don't think I would've believed what Hattori's saying otherwise_. Shinichi sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. _No wonder he believed me so quickly. I was an idiot for thinking it was all just down to exposure to Kazuha. . . I wonder whether this kind of thing has happened before?_ He gave himself a dark kind of internal chuckle. _Who am I kidding? With the amount of trouble I got into? No freakin' way it _didn't.

"Oi, Kudo. Er. . . you ok?"

Shinichi shook his head, more in baffled wonder and to sort his thoughts out than a negative response.

"Why shouldn't I be? I'm back, the case I'm working on can handle long distance for at least a while – only if I stay low profile, so long as I'm given enough time to get accustomed to the changes, I doubt I'd be very easy to actually _kill_. And that's not mentioning the more _pleasant_ side-effects." He snorted. "What's there not to like?"

"Shinichi. . ."

"It's alright, Ran." He gave her a wan smile.

Kazuha, however, shot up from where she'd been leaning against Hattori, having let go of his arm a while back.

"No it _isn't_. You – you – you're a –" she steeled herself for the word "- a _vampire_." Ran flinched, Shinichi twitched and Hattori tensed, but Kazuha herself, although hardly unaware of the reactions, seemed unfazed, having felt the need to be seen as confident. "It's _not_ alright. You hurt Heiji yesterday. Somehow. And before anyone says anything, I _know_ it was you. It's – it's not going to be the same anymore. It just _isn't_."

For sheer minutes, long silence reigned as two detectives and their friends (and maybe something mores) tried to think about that and what it would mean.

Because it was true. All of it. Nothing _was_ going to be the same again. The same way he'd slowly come to realize the same thing after becoming Conan. Maybe they'd find their ways to adjust, but it was different. Life would go on, but Shinichi had a sinking feeling that no matter what else happened, normality would pass him by, and this time without even the tip of its hat to greet him as they passed.

oOoOoVoOoOoVoOoOo

AN: grins couldn't help it with either the chapter title or the 'quote'. Chapter title comes from an episode of Buffy, last season. Refers to literal events in the chapter. As does the quote.

As for the chapter itself, well. . . I'd always planned on them meeting after she found out (and the 'Conan's dead!' line was the turning point that stayed for always in the previous chapter) and this was the result. Go look at Laurelin89's pic How to Tell Her - I directly referenced to that when I was writing the scene, and let me tell you, it was _fun_. Notes being - no, Shinichi wasn't really that cold to the touch, but Ran was over-sensitive to such things at the time. No, they haven't discussed a lot of things so far, but they either will or it will be hinted that they have in the next chapter. smirks Yes, Shinichi is using a kind of real magic to survive in the sunlight, but not that he'll ever admit to it. Worse than Seto Kaiba when it comes to stuff like this. Another - the _'Shinichi wa Shinichi'_ is a homage to Rurouni Kenshin. Jin-e, just before he dies, says that _Hitokiri wa Hitokiri_, or _always_ hitokiri. It's that kind of permanance that Ran is trying to get across, so I left it in the original japanese to get the desired effect.

I'm not completely up-to-date on the manga. I've a couple hundred chapters missing from my read list, though I'm working on that. As a result, I may have some facts wrong when it comes to Jodie-sensei and/or Shinichi's house and other inter-related topics. Please excuse any discrepancies and point them out.

_Heavy_ references to the first time Conan visited Osaka with Heiji. The whole Hattori-is-psychically-linked-to-Kudo thing is straight from there. Honest it's canon.

I was originally going to end the chapter later, but this seemed a good time to end it. Next will include new characters (not Original) and will be a kind of bridge to the second part. blinks I can't believe the story's going so quickly. I'm left dazed. Don't worry - next chapter will be essential reading for plotline.

On another note, I'm seriously considering doing a write-up of Heiji and Kazuha's day which I keep referring to. There's so much being missed out in the main story, to be honest, I don't think it'd be fair to leave you without. If I do, it'll come up as a 'TVD Omake'. So's you know what to look for in case.


	6. The Clues

The Vampire Detective

Chapter 6 – The Clues

Disclaimer - I do not own Detective Conan, I do not own Magic Kaito (much love) and I do not own Blues Clues. . . where'd that one come from?!

'_Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?' - anon_

This – this is impossible.

This _should_ be impossible.

A pair of blue-violet eyes stared disbelievingly at the newspaper article.

Blink.

Blink. Blink.

The article had not even the smallest photo, or even a description. But in his eyes, that was good. _Very_ good.

High School Student, As Yet Unnamed, Solves Case That Had Police Baffled.

High school detective could only mean one of three people. Hakuba, on said day, had been out doing things of a non-detective sort with him and Aoko. Hattori Heiji hadn't been in Beika for a few days now. Which only left one option.

Kudo. Diminutive detective extraordinaire Kudo Shinichi.

But if he was still 'Conan', still terminally short, why would the newspaper report a high school student? The way the article was written, it didn't look like the guy had just phoned in – no, he'd been there _in person_.

It shouldn't be possible. But evidently, it was.

"Kuroba-kun. You have been looking at the same page for two minutes and thirty-four seconds. Class is about to start."

Ah. There went Hakuba. He smiled, not quite a smirk, but nearly, leaning back in his chair and putting the paper down.

"Kaito?"

Hakuba's Look was curious and intrigued, tempered with wariness left over from the tricks first the class magician, then the Kaitou Kid, had thought to play on him for his birthday not too long ago. Kaito liked to think that he could still see a little blue in the other boy's hair. Aoko was watching him with concern. The rest of the class – nervousness, as his smile turned into a grin.

Maybe, just maybe, it was time to pay Kudo another visit. Nothing big – just to see how one of his favourite detectives was doing.

A few people backed away and the teacher went on edge when the impossible turned improbable and his grin widened.

--

Donk. Donk. Donk. _Pfft_. Flop.

Shinichi sighed disconsolately and retreated back into the shadows of the park for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. About as many soccer balls lay scattered nearby.

_Dammit. It's worse than having just turned into Conan. At least then it's just co-ordination and perception. Now_ – he snorted – _now I can't even kick a ball around without - !_ He growled in frustration. He had gone from a too-weak brat to a too-strong high school vampire detective, and things like that took some getting used to.

Well, at least the police listened to him, now. But that wasn't much use when with the smallest of misjudged grips, things could go all kinds of bad. Bad enough that he kept making mincemeat out of soccer balls while he was trying to relax. Worse – and it made him shiver to think how worse things could be – was if he lost control while dealing with _people_. Or if he was trying to _save_ someone.

_Damn_.

Feeling a familiar headache coming on in the midday sun, he packed up the various balls and headed back through the park towards home. Past the joggers and the cyclists, the people walking their dogs and those just taking a walk, past the kids on their scooters and skateboards (and that was one thing he _would_ miss about being little – the professor's skateboard wouldn't work for him at this size) and the sports players still in their uniforms and chatting about games.

Normal. They were all going about their lives as usual, and each and every one of them were as normal as could be. As normal as Ran. As normal as Kogoro and Eri – as his own parents. Be they as protective as Kazuha or as proper as Hakuba Saguru, they were all normal.

As normal as he wasn't.

Haibara had called his blood sample _interesting_.

That night, only two days back when she had told him, stuck in his memory, echoed in his mind like it had only just happened.

Hattori and Kazuha had stayed the night, despite Kazuha's protests, and had stayed in town for most of the next day, as well. Ran had marvelled at how, even though Hattori and Shinichi were both in the same place, nothing had happened. At least, not of illegal bent. Kazuha had snidely commented at one point that it was likely because there _was_ a dead body following them all around – said all the while giving one Kudo Shinichi glares as sharp as daggers, which made Hattori start an argument with her. The two had gone back home before it got too dark however, admitting the obvious fact that they had skipped school to check up on Kudo. Ran and Hattori had even managed to force an apology out of Kazuha before she left, but he hadn't minded – too much, anyway. He had understood early on, much earlier than Hattori, that the girl was simply worried for the guy. And probably more than slightly jealous, too, if his deduction was correct.

That night, he had walked Ran home, promising to tell her everything he hadn't been able to tell her before after he came back from Agasa's. He hadn't looked forward to that – at all, in fact – and the fact that he was going to have dinner over at the Mouris' just beforehand hadn't helped his nerves much.

So, it had been with a strangely sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that he had walked the short distance over to where he was to be dissected.

He hadn't even reached the door long enough to ring on the buzzer before Professor Agasa opened it, beaming.

"Ah, Shinichi-kun! You're just in time!"

_Eh? In time for what?_ As he followed the professor in, taking off his shoes and putting on house slippers, the thought crossed his mind of some strange sort of experiment just coming to fruition. He shook his head clear of the Frankenstein-like imagery with a self-chastisement not to be silly.

"The kettle's just boiled," the old man continued. "Ai-kun, he's here!"

Increasingly puzzled, he heard Haibara mutter something under her breath as she came up the stairs from the lab. "_I did hear the door. . . Not to mention that I was the one to tell him to come tonight."_

"Ah –Ai-kun. Are you done?"

"Hardly," came the familiar dry tones. "But it can wait. The rest merely needs to stay put until necessary and not be disturbed."

The professor disappeared for a moment into the kitchen and reappeared moments later with a tray bearing three mugs of steaming hot chocolate.

"Here, Ai-kun. Shinichi-kun." They both took their mugs from him, but while Haibara started blowing on hers immediately, Shinichi sat there on the sofa looking nonplussed into the hot drink. "I'm so glad you came when you did. I'm not too sure how long the drinks could have kept hot for. . ."

He just kept staring into the steam, confused. "So which do I get first? The good news or the bad news?"

Haibara attempted to cover up a cynical snort, but settled for a sigh that blew onto the hot drink. "Relax, Kudo-kun. Aside from the fact that I have yet to discover anything overtly negative in your results, I am not one to compartmentalize things into good and bad. I merely deal with facts, much as you deal with evidence."

Shinichi whispered in the professor's ear. "Are you sure she hasn't said anything to you?"

Agasa chuckled nervously, slightly embarrassed sounding. "Ah- no. Nothing."

A mild Look from Haibara sent the two into near-silence, broken only by conversation about non-sensitive topics. Shinichi's day was recounted, Kazuha's mood glossed over slightly. Haibara also told of her past couple of days; the Shounen Tantei were already missing their leader, and had started asking after Conan-kun. She had had to cover for him by telling them what he had told the others before – that he had seen something that disagreed with him on a case, and had gone to stay with Shinichi-niichan's friends for a while. Haibara rose an eyebrow at the end of this, a nonverbal question. The professor joined her in looking at him as he finished the last dregs of sweet chocolate. After all, it would be him, Shinichi, who would have to remember the details of the story more often than anyone else.

". . . I was going to tell anyone who asked that Edogawa Conan had decided to return to the States. Back where he came from. That way there's no body for the police to chase after, and if I _do_ return to Conan for whatever reason," a glance at Haibara "then I should be able to say that I'd just come back to see some friends."

Haibara nodded and put down her empty cup.

"Feel better?"

"What?"

Well. . . he _had_ felt tired and full of nerves before coming, and he _was_ better now, but what had that to do with anything?

Haibara smirked.

"I was merely validating a theory, so you don't need to worry. I was experimenting earlier today on whether there was anything other than blood that would alleviate the symptoms of withdrawal, for even just minor cases. Chocolate seemed to be reacting positively, but I had nothing solid to go on until just now."

"So that was just an experiment to you? Keep me in the dark at your convenience?"

"Hardly." Her tones dropped into icy for a moment "If you had known, then you would undoubtedly tense and watch yourself for any changes. You _should_ know better than us by now that if you stress over something, you lose energy quicker than normal, which would mean that we wouldn't find out whether or not I was right."

He looked away. She was right.

"Aside from that," she added with a little more humour in her voice, "you can hardly walk around carrying blood bags."

"Point," he conceded. Especially if he was going to continue going to school still – which he had every intention of doing.

"And speaking of blood," Haibara said as she jumped up from her seat, "yours. . . is _interesting_."

That. . . That had been where things had gone slantways. _Or at least started to_, Shinichi thought in the present as he made an effort of not looking completely depressed and fading into the background at the same time as he walked down the street. _Haibara's never called anything interesting like that unless it's really weird. Normally, she acts all cool and composed as if nothing can get to her, and if it can she doesn't show it unless it's_ them. _I should've known then that something was up_.

Back in the past, he had followed the two scientists down into the lab, noting belatedly that all of the stools that he had used in the past were now too short and would have to be adjusted. Computer screens had been lit, flashing with new information every so often, and on a desk near a power supply there were a number of dishes with red substance in them – his blood, he assumed. Various other were often mixed in, gaining varied reactions, and a similar series of test tubes was lined up over by the sink.

It made him feel rather odd, as if he was a Thing to be examined. He didn't much like the idea of being a Thing. He turned his attention away just in time to see Haibara head over in that direction.

"You should probably see this first. It is, after all, the most important thing I discovered."

She took out a dropper and a new dish, collecting and dripping a couple of drops of his blood onto the clear plastic. Then, with more care than previously, she headed over to a particular drawer and pulled out what looked like a make-up tin, albeit a small one. He recognized it as being the one with the Apotoxin in it. Small but steady hands took out a single pill, opened it and poured it onto a slip of paper. Hand hovering above it, she paused.

"Watch carefully."

The small amount of Apotoxin slid into the dish with his blood in it and almost as quickly the whole thing was moved under a microscope. Haibara motioned to him and he bent over the desk with his eye to the contraption.

Wide-eyed, he looked back up.

"In regards to poisons and various other diseases, your blood seems to have qualities not unlike the nanogenes of science fiction. They hunt out the intruding organisms and destroy or break them into compounds that can be dealt with better in your. . . altered physiology. If I looked for it now, there would likely be miniscule parts of the toxin still in your bloodstream. Weeks from now? I'm not so sure."

At the time, Shinichi had breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't known that he had been holding in. Even in the present, there was that small knot of tension that stopped worrying whenever he remembered her saying that. He wouldn't have to be Conan again. Ever. It was exhilarating. It was – fantastic.

There were side effects.

"Because of this," the diminutive scientist had continued, "there was also something else that caught my interest." She had raised both her head and her eyebrow in Shinichi's direction. "Your display that night."

_His - ?_

She pointed absently at the beaker that she had taken the sample of his blood from. "Your remarkable healing properties," she reminded him dryly. "I wondered what might possibly cause such a reaction. I was certainly intrigued by what I found."

She had hopped onto a stool in front of a computer screen that was flashing it's information for all to see, even if only one of them understood it. Programs flashed and ran on the screen, charts and simulations and even a video. Nothing that Shinichi (or even Agasa-hakase) understood all too well.

"After a lot of tests and trials with only blood samples and my own memories to work with, I reached a conclusion." The charts appeared, then the time-lined photos. "Kudo-kun. You appear to work on a regeneration rather than a repair system." At both of their blank looks, she explained further, not looking at either but with a voice tempered with sympathy and something else. "A normal human body repairs itself. Sometimes, it doesn't do the job properly or is unable."

They all knew what she hadn't said. But I'm hardly a normal human anymore, am I?

"Regeneration, a vaguely similar case being the lizard whose limbs are able to re-grow after having been severed, renews the dead tissue by replacing it with new and undamaged tissue, which in your case doesn't even leave a scar. In short, it replaces what was damaged based on what is already there, what it already has."

The room had become very still, very quickly. Shinichi and Agasa both knew what she hadn't said. They hadn't spoken of it any more, but had gone onto tests of eyesight, hearing, strength, touch, smell and even how long he could hold his breath for among various other things.

He still couldn't believe that he'd been able to face Ran and still smile.

She was going to die someday – maybe not soon, but someday – and unless foul play was involved, he wasn't.

So for her he smiled and lived and tried to laugh like he had before, being careful of so many, many things that he'd never even had to think of before. Being careful so that he didn't crush her when he took her hand. Being careful not to simply listen in on her all the time. Being careful to let her know when he was tired. Being careful to never be near her – or anyone else – who was injured. Being careful not to let her know what he knew.

Because he couldn't.

Couldn't tell her what he knew – or what he felt.

Because he couldn't break her heart.

The gate clanged shut behind him as he walked back into his empty home.

--

Kuroba Kaito had practically _bounced_ through class.

He had found Kudo. More importantly than even that, he had proof that the guy had been around for more than a few hours or days. He'd been around for at least a week.

Not to mention that he himself had actually _seen_ the guy.

He hadn't done much for the pleasure, either. Simply gone and taken a trip into Beika, strolled into the park – and there he was. His very own Tantei-kun, all grown up and attempting to kick balls around. He snickered at the memory. He'd seen Tantei-kun do an awful lot more with a soccer ball when thinking than just kicking it around like he had. In fact, he'd discovered so many new uses of the humble soccer ball just by watching, that there should probably be a new dictionary entry or something.

He had wondered why so many of them had been so badly damaged, but the thought had been cast aside. Probably testing out kick-shoes built for the average teenager rather than the average grade schooler and finding a big gap between the power he had and the power he needed.

_Oh, well. I suppose it wouldn't be my fault if a certain someone got impaled on their own sword. . . not like I'd have thought he'd need power enhancing shoes at this size, anyway_.

Never mind about _that_. Just wait until the next heist when he could tell him that the girl who'd oh-so-innocently just ridden past him on her bicycle and _just_ so coincidentally needed to mend her bike _just there_ had been _him_.

He couldn't wait to see the look on Tantei-kun's face.

But.

And that was a big but, too. One of those annoying buts that never ceased to butt in. One that wouldn't let him _alone_, dammit!

But Kudo hadn't been there all that long. But he hadn't seemed to kick all that hard. But that look on his face. . .

He'd looked as if someone had died.

And it couldn't have been literally as in murder either, unless it was someone he knew, and it hadn't been because Kaito had checked the papers again today. No deaths in Beika that day. No weird happenings for once. A few strange things going on as was the norm, of course – this _was_ Tantei-kun's hometown, after all – but nothing too serious.

Which begged the question; 'Why did Tantei-kun look like he did?'

And because it nagged at him the same way Nakamori-keibu did during a heist, he just couldn't leave it be. No-can-do thing. There was something off, and something unpredictable, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

"Oi! _Kaito!_ Hurry up!"

And get to the bottom of it he would – just as soon as he had the time away from Aoko and his mom, of course.

--

It was two days after the park, and he had been spending the day over at Agasa's. Ai was doing extra research on whether or not she could use the reaction his blood had given to the Apotoxin to develop a new kind of cure for herself, as he evidently didn't need one any more. So far, there had been little to no success, but progress was progress. Agasa himself had invited Shinichi over in order to se if there was anything he could do about the teen detectives latest problems with soccer balls.

So far, they had tried to make them lighter ( they had just flopped about), harder (downright dangerous). That one would have almost destroyed a window if Shinichi hadn't been quick enough to catch it in time – raising eyebrows and attention from both other inhabitants of the room at that time.

The present found Agasa tinkering away at something or other and attempting to talk to a brooding and grumpy Shinichi. Ran and Sonoko had gone out shopping much like they had the other day, giggling outrageously as they left.

"Ne, Shinichi-kun."

"What?"

Shinichi's tone was brisk and irritated.

"I was wondering. . ."

Agasa was hesitating, and procrastinating to boot.

"You haven't told anyone else, have you?"

Shinichi snorted cynically.

"Do I look like a suicidal idiot? No. No one."

Few people that he was back as Kudo Shinichi. Fewer still the reason behind his recent aversion to sunlight for prolonged periods and sudden distaste of being hit with wood. The stuff _hurt_.

Agasa cleared his throat.

"I simply thought that maybe there were one or two people more that you _could_ tell."

"Like who?"

Blank, his voice was. With a covering of something cold.

The number of people who he trusted enough to tell were on one hand. Or thereabouts.

"Ah, well . . ."

Tinker, tinker. Clink and tap.

"_Who_, hakase?"

"Your parents."

For a few moments, silence took hold. Shinichi held his breath, trying not to drown in a kind of panic. Haibara had stopped typing and clicking away at her computer simulations. The professor was as still as the other two were, evidently waiting for the coming storm.

"My _parents_?! You can't tell _them_ that I'm like this! I'd be dead meat!"

They'd ship him off to America before he had a chance to protest! They'd be nightmares of the worst sort and never let him step foot outside his house again!

"Technically, Kudo-kun, you already are."

Haibara hadn't even looked away from the computer, her voice flat, wry and darkly amused.

"_Haibara_."

"Shinichi-kun, don't whine." Haibara smirked. He could just feel it. "Ai-kun, don't tease Shinichi."

Haibara turned to face them both, her face neutral.

"I don't tease. I merely stated a fact."

His eyes narrowed at the smaller girl, glared at her. She _knew_ how hard it was for him. That was _no reason_ to rub his nose in it!

He didn't notice the look that she sent him as he left with one of the un-tinkered with soccer balls, a look that was wary, and just this side of fear.

--

She had only been on her fifth circuit of the Kudo house and its environs when Kudo himself had come storming out of professor Agasa's next door, soccer ball under his arm and an almost inhuman gleam of something angry in his blue eyes.

_Ouch. Someone's been royally ticked off. Wouldn't like to be them_. . .

_Well – no sense putting it off any longer, is there? After all, this_ is _the opportune moment. . ._

"Oh – _hey_ – oh!"

It wasn't hard to see the wince at her accent; Americans didn't usually lend themselves well to Japanese, and that was probably just as well, seeing what 'she' was there for. Best to be remembered for something like a bad accent that would have had even Kuroba Kaito cringing.

She stopped the bicycle right in front of the Kudo residence and in line with their gates.

"Ah – miss – the pronunciation is 'ohaiyo'. Not – _that_."

If it had been Kuroba Kaito – if it had, he would have laughed. As it was, the girl just smiled enthusiastically, apparently thrilled to find someone else who could speak her own language.

"Yes, yes! Sorry! It's a nice day, isn't it? It isn't nice to be frowning on such a nice day, Mr. Kudo!"

If it was Kid, he'd be starting to feel extremely relieved that his gift with copying voices could work so seamlessly with his understanding of American English. He had never been to the country himself, only heard about it and watched TV shows. But for people like him, TV shows were more than enough.

There was an inner grin when Kudo started to ask how the American girl knew who he was. It slipped when suspicion crept into the detective's eyes.

The girl laughed.

"I saw your face in the paper a while back," she said, giggling. "How could I forget such a memorable face?"

_How could I, indeed? It's not as though I see it in the mirror every morning and more_. . .

Kudo grimaced. Possibly from 'her' heavy accent. More likely that a complete stranger had recognized him from a years-old newspaper article. That _would_ cause understandable fear. If he wasn't certain that what he was doing was for the best, the person on the bike would have possibly felt guilty. It was, however, better by far to be remembered for something like this than anything at all that could possibly be traced back to Kid.

This wasn't a heist.

He couldn't afford to be discovered – yet.

The girl he was playing laughed nervously at the short silence. Then, on impulse, held out her hand.

"I'm Katie Clarkson! Pleased to meet you!"

Kudo blinked. Looked around and cocked his head at something, then shook himself.

"Kudo Shinichi. But you already knew that, didn't you?"

_Ack! Idiot! Of course he isn't talking about as Kid! You just gave him your cover story. Stick to it, then!_ It didn't help that Kudo's voice kept giving him the shivers – too reminiscent of deductions and denouncements. Not to mention something else he couldn't put his finger on.

"_Hai!_"

'Katie' giggled and shook the detective's hand.

"You know," she continued, "I got here a few days back. I actually first saw you in the park." She put a thoughtful finger to her mouth, tapped it once, then winked. "You know, you've got one _mean_ kick!"

For a moment, he could have sworn Kudo had stopped breathing. A flinch, a wince and an angry (_anger at himself, perhaps?_) look later and he was back to normal as if nothing had happened.

"Ah – that was nothing, really. I have a friend who's also a professor, and he made me shoes that increase kick power." An embarrassed look, and the first thing closer to anything other than grumpy broodiness that he had seen all day. "I. . . admit to having difficulty adjusting the power settings sometimes."

He was careful to leave his face a mask of a girlish smile and nothing like what he was actually feeling.

_. . . Upgrade to Conan's kick shoes? In that body? You don't_ need _kick shoes, Kudo. Anyone who ever got their ass handed to them in cuffs before you were chibified would know that much. I'm not stupid, either. You're wearing different shoes today to yesterday, and carrying a soccer ball too . . . just what kind of secret are you hiding _now_, Kudo?_

Instead of saying any of this aloud, he settled for adequate surprise and delight. At the idea that a professor could make gadgets like that, it was just like a spy! Did Mr. Kudo think that maybe his professor friend could give _her_ some sort of present? She had a friend who was interested in soccer, too. . .

Kudo hung disinterestedly on to her every word, looking all the while more and more preoccupied.

The one disguised as Katie gulped, a drip of sweat trickling down the nape of his neck_. I just hope that isn't an 'I've just figured you out' preoccupied_. _No. If he'd figured me out somehow, he'd be smirking. You know that smirk. You've seen it too many times. No. . . this is something . . . different_.

Kudo froze, and it wasn't because of anything 'Katie' had said or done. Especially when the next thing the teen detective did was turn his head sharply in the direction of a side-street and start cursing.

"_Shimatta_."

With that – he was gone. The disguised thief got a flash of blue in the edge of his vision, but even the Kaitou Kid would have had a hard time following Kudo Shinichi just then.

He didn't even bother trying to hide it. His shock was written all over the American girl's face.

--

Something had been bugging Shinichi all the way through the impromptu interview with the annoying American, but he hadn't been able to figure out what it had been.

When a horrified scream that had most definitely not come from anywhere near Tropical Land could be heard in the distance, it had been all he could do to start running and hope that he got there in time.

He did; the woman who had screamed had seen the culprit, and he had been able to get there before the man had been able to escape or even secure an alibi. Just one more thing to weigh against the downsides of being a vampire was the extra speed that made it so that investigation, for once, wasn't necessary.

By the time he had the chance to go home after the paperwork, he had entirely forgotten that anything had bothered him at all about the American girl who had called herself Katie Clarkson.

--

While all of that had happened, said girl could have been seen walking her bike through town. If at one point she had disappeared and her bike with her, only for a messy-haired teen to appear minutes later from that same place, who were those passing to know what might or might not have been the usual flow of pedestrians?

Kuroba Kaito fitted in with the flows of the crowds. It wasn't a particularly hard thing for him to do; a magician had to know his audience, after all, and the Kaitou Kid had to know his even better. Being able to give out a kind of aura that basically said _I'm no one interesting_ was something important for both – and especially for disappearing acts.

He flitted through town. On and off busses, sometimes on foot and sometimes taking detours.

Eventually, he arrived home.

He let himself in, sending out an absent greeting to his mother that he was back before heading up the stairs to his room. His room, not Kid's.

Once there he practically collapsed, barely aware of his surroundings or what it was he was doing.

The computer that sat on his desk turned on. _A search. Information. That's what I need_.

_First thing. How long has Kudo been back for?_ After several minutes of surfing through the usual channels, he sighed and stretched. Nothing was actually coming up except vague hints and unclear references and witnesses. _Not going to work for me that way, huh? Don't worry, there's always the other way_. . . The other way which was quicker, more challenging and definitely a lot more illegal – tapping into school records. Which, no matter the amount of guilt (small. He was trying to help the guy here, after all) did get the answers he needed. _So. Kudo's been back among us for. . . a week. Yeah. About that_.

_Next. How the hell did he get back to normal?_ Kaito himself had only seen the guy once before The Big Shrink, and then not enough of a clear sight to warrant even partial recognition of Edogawa Conan. _So, by thinking in those terms, the kid – no, the teen – had been shrunk for about a year, going on for two. Which begs the rather important question of If he'd had some kind of cure, then why hadn't he used it before? On a more than temporary basis?_ The only answer that his brain yielded was that he hadn't had some kind of magical cure before. That it had been something stumbled upon in the days before Kudo Shinichi returned to society. Yet it also had to be after Edogawa Conan disappeared, which – he took a glance at the corresponding school registers – would fit in between that day and that day. _Just there. That day there_. The only one where neither version of Tantei-kun had gone to school.

He leaned back and stretched, then tapped the keyboard with a restless finger. Next, but by no means last, was _what the hell happened that day?_

This would be slightly more challenging. He would have to delve into police records. Mouri Kogoro never kept any of _his_ work on computer, which made life hard for well meaning thieves like him who didn't want to get caught.

Never mind.

The police files were certainly a source of entertainment most of the time, but that was when he was digging up what they knew about the Kaitou Kid. This time was more serious. Knowing Kudo like he did, it was rare the guy would ever deal with much that wasn't a murder of some sort.

Kaito didn't like murders.

So it was with no little trepidation that he clicked open the report.

_Holy -!_

Kaito swore, hoping that his mother wasn't eavesdropping on him again. Sighed with unrestrained relief when she didn't berate him through the door or otherwise. Looked back at the screen and hoped that it wasn't about to explain everything to him in black and white type font.

--

Ran sat, head on hands, against the long-paned window of her father's office. The detective himself was out, on a case. Trailing someone, probably. She herself just sat there, watching the people passing by in the rain-soaked street below her and thinking.

She could have chosen to go out, but really – what would be the point? It was _wet_. Not to mention she was in no mood for anything other than what she was doing already.

_Shinichi_. He had been back for well over a week, now. Yet in some ways it didn't seem like . . . like it was even the same person. He wasn't _different_, really. It wasn't that. She could still see Shinichi in his every move and action. He just seemed so – so lost. As if something had changed. And it had. Even if Ran didn't like to think about it.

She coped by focusing on what the here and now said about him. The here and now said that he was still the person she had known since forever, so nothing was any different. Why would she want to treat him differently? They had talked about Conan, and what he had felt about that, and she had made it very, _very_ clear to him how she felt about being lied to in such a way. And that it wouldn't happen ever again.

She liked to just ignore the changes. But sometimes, she couldn't.

Sometimes, it was little things.

The way he twitched so much more nowadays. When he hadn't been able to be overheard, he had told her that it was because he was still adjusting to being a lot more sensitive to things that he'd never paid any attention to before. Which didn't bother her too badly – after all, Shinichi hardly ever sat still for very long anyway. He always thought better on his feet. There were times, sometimes, when his grin looked just like Conan's had, or he reached up to adjust glasses that just weren't there any more. That, more often than not, made her laugh. If he was still adjusting to being Shinichi again, she could use that as an outlet for her anger at being lied to. She had understood, when Ai-chan and the hakase had told her, understood when Shinichi himself had gone over everything from his point of view, but that didn't mean that she had to _like_ it.

Sometimes, it was things that were either useful, or she just didn't mind them. Like the way when, during an investigation, he might suddenly cock his head to one side as if hearing something the rest of the room, the ordinary mortals, couldn't hear, or looking at something that the others couldn't seem to see as clearly as he did. Then there would come that smirk that she knew so well, the one that was a match to the look on Hattori-kun's face that Kazuha-chan looked forward to as well. The one that said _I know who you are, you've lost, even if you don't know it yet_. Because of that, he could find things that closed cases even quicker than ever before. When the police asked him about it, he skirted the truth by saying that he'd picked some tricks up while he'd been away.

But sometimes, it was big things. Things that she couldn't ignore, or laugh at, or just look at without thinking that it was different, it was weird, Shinichi had _changed_.

Things like the fact that he never let her open the fridge at his place any more. He always got her drinks, even though she knew his house almost as well as he knew hers. Which was quite well, seen as he had been living there as Conan. She could only imagine what he kept in there nowadays, and she didn't want to know.

There was the way he paled whenever he went indoors and out of the sunlight. That whenever he got angry – no matter where he was – if he got really angry, his eyes would light up strangely, as if there was something else behind them, something scary. She hadn't seen that anger unleashed against anyone other than criminals and attempted-criminals so far, but every time it came out, it sent shivers down her spine.

There was the fact of fangs. Try as he might to ignore their existence around her, she wasn't stupid. The things appeared at the slightest provocation sometimes, and usually at the strangest of times. The most common were if he was hungry, irritated, upset. . . though recently he had started to control it a little better. It did get disconcerting, to say the least. They were one of the few fully recognizable things that pointed out in a painfully obvious way, what exactly he was nowadays.

The worst thing, though, wasn't something physical. No, no matter how hard it was for her, it was worse to see him every day and not help but to notice that the smile was only half there, the laugh strained, the words not so easy.

The Shinichi from before would have been able to smile and laugh and blather on all day about Sherlock Holmes or his latest case. Even when he'd been Conan, it hadn't been this bad, ever. Not really.

It had all come to a head the day before. They had been walking home under the darkening skies after a late day of school. Shinichi had wanted to go across town to a bookshop, where they sold the new story by one of his favourite current authors. They had been able to buy the book, but not long after that disaster had fallen.

Quite literally, too.

Later, they had found out that the victim had been one Shimoda Sakamoto-san. Doctor in training yet still quite young, the man had fallen to his death from the sixth story of a apartment building, straight onto the iron railings that fenced the place off from the street.

Shinichi had blanched white, paler than usual. She had been able to see him shake as he conducted his investigations, even after Megure-keibu and the rest of his team arrived, still under their jurisdiction, the murder having been in Shibuya.

Takagi-keji and Sato-san had tried to ask him how he was, whether or not he felt alright or had a fever of some kind. Shinichi had just tried to shrug them off. Pushed them away.

If she was honest with herself, then she would have to admit that she had thought that he was going to faint several times. He kept looking back at the body, at where the body had fallen to, those tall metal spikes of cold iron.

She didn't know what might or might not have gone on in his head, but she had understood one small part of what he had been feeling.

Fear.

She didn't know why. Or maybe she did; after all, hadn't he expected her to fear him?

It had been heart-wrenching. Seeing him like that, not taking any joy in what he was doing, only the cold knowledge that it was what had to be done.

He had looked lost. Alone.

And she didn't know how to help him.

So instead, she sat there, watching the hours slip away, watching as the sky cried for the three of them.

--

_I'm running out of time._

The thought came to him as it had done ever since that day when he'd been walking through Shibuya.

Which hadn't been that long ago, really. And he was _still_ running out of time.

_I've got to do. . . _something. _Anything._

_Whatever it takes_.

The full moon had passed last week. That one hadn't been it. The coming weekend, still a couple or so days away, was. . .

The _new_ moon.

The one day Kid never came out.

Because the Kaitou Kid was supposed to be the Magician in the Moonlight, wasn't he? Moonlight was the only thing that would garner any sort of reaction from the Pandora gem, so the thief out to take it would only be able to test it on a moonlit night. It was what people knew. What people understood and expected of him.

The problem was, how to get an audience without the rotten apples?

Easy. Tell 'em you don't want 'em.

Kaito smirked, stopped pacing about his room, and returned to the computer that had twisted his life all kinds of wacky what seemed like a lifetime ago but was actually only a few days and drew out two plain white pieces of hard paper.

_Now. To disinvite some ninjas, and invite a vampire around for tea_.

--

AN: And first to say how sorry I am at the length. I didn't mean it to be so long. However, it was always supposed to span aproximately two weeks, so it's not too bad. I hope.

There are various puns and inspired references in this chapter, just like all others. The timing is set at the first few weeks of september, so yes, I'm putting Hakuba's birthday at the end of August. I'd seen as that in a few places, and thought that since the timing was so close, I could squeeze a reference in. Blue hair jokes courtesy of Windfall by Ysabet and Icka's picture. Also due to Icka are; the hot chocolate scene. If you don't know what I mean, go read her Vampyre story. All weird science comes from that, if it's about chocolate. Ninjas (above, directly) are from pictures I've seen inspired by a story, and also referred to as such in a story 'Inconcievable'. Kaito's hacking skills come from the first chapters of Relative Truth, and Nanogenes come from Doctor Who. (I can just imagine Haibara watching that.)

I'm sorry, sincerely, about the angst. It was necessary. The next chapter will start to get a little lighter, but also have a lot more of the leadup to the Big Bit of the Scary Plot.

I like the Kaitou Kid and Kuroba Kaito. Does it show? P


	7. The Kid and the Cops

The Vampire Detective

Chapter 7 – The Kid and the Cops

Disclaimer - I'm still looking for a job. If this wasn't fanfiction, maybe, just maybe, I'd have one.

_Trust your friends, but deal the cards yourself - _Kuroba Touichi

The next morning was – for lack of a better and more appropriate term – pandemonium. Complete and utter organized chaos.

A Kid heist note usually does that.

Nakamori Ginzo and the rest of his Kaitou Kid Task Force were working overtime, trying to crack the code that Kid had set them and even going as far as to check every detail of the note to make sure that it wasn't a forgery of any kind; the fact that it had been sent out when it had, with no large jewel displays coming up soon because of the most recent and extremely humiliating August heist. Headaches, shouts and cursing were all common, all three of the above coming at the same time from Nakamori-keibu's office.

Walking past, two teenagers could be seen bickering. One was shouting, with enough volume and rage to rival the inspector. The other was smirking and laughing in turn, right up until the point where he flipped her skirt. Then, the one she was shouting about wasn't in the paper, but right in front of her. A light in her eyes, she ran after the now grinning Kaito.

Others, however, didn't have the advantage of already knowing what was in the note and, more importantly, what the note meant.

One of whom happened to be high school detective Hakuba Saguru, interrupted from his breakfast by an early mail delivered straight to his letterbox.

It was the same white card that was used for Kid heist notices. It was the same handwriting. He couldn't presume to lie that the doodle had been forged; it was completely different.

Yet – he wasn't invited.

It was so unlike Kid. What was there to gain by disinviting people? Kid loved audiences, so asking someone not to come was defeating the object, the goal. What was the point?

_My dear Tantei-san_, read his note. _There is to be a private performance. No cheating or helping out the competitors. I know you'll understand_.

The doodle of Kid in the corner seemed a little more detailed than usual, with a bit more effort put into it. The effect, when he looked closer, was that Kid seemed to be _winking_ at him. With an entirely too mischievous smirk for his liking. It was one that Saguru often saw on the face of his classmate, not that that helped matters at all, being that said classmate was the one he suspected of being Kid. It was a look that said _I'm about to pull off my most amazing trick yet. Don't tell Aoko_.

Hakuba Saguru sighed, pinching his nose.

_I'm going to regret this_. . .

On the other end of the spectrum, there were those who _had_ received their note.

Said person was currently, unlike the others. . .

Still waking up.

_Mmf_.

Preternatural hearing that had more than once woken him up in the middle of the night was ringing his alarm bells. Again.

_Gah. Shaddup. Lemme sleep_.

Ever since waking up and having to concentrate to be able to go out in the sun, late nights had become a habit.

So, of course, had the corresponding morning problem.

Tap. Tap.

_Buzzzzzzz_!

Sighing, he flailed slightly, hitting his alarm clock lightly with an outstretched hand. The buzzing stopped, but the tapping continued. Groaning, Shinichi crawled out of bed, heading over to the source of the noise.

Ugh. Window.

Not being awake and aware enough to brave the sunlight yet, he stood to one side so that the potentially harmful rays would fall on bare floor and opened the window, letting in as he did so a white balloon with two propellers attached; one by the feet and one on top of an easily recognizable miniature hang glider, which soared on until it hit the wall, where it fell to the floor.

The note was attached to the underside of the light paper hang glider, and Shinichi groaned, having a foreboding feeling of something bad about to happen, but even that overridden by the strong desire to hit his head against a brick wall.

_Rubies and garnets glisten free of their glass cage._

_When the lady rests and her maids watch the world,_

_God's abandoned child will take that which cannot be stolen_

_P.S_

_Katie-chan says hello_.

--

"_Eeeh?!_ You mean you got a note from Kid that woke you up?"

"That's what I just said, isn't it?"

Shinichi and Ran were walking on the way to school, Shinichi irritably telling Ran all about the events of the morning.

Ran actually giggled.

"I bet Sonoko would just _love_ to hear about this. She's always going on about how she wants to see the Kaitou Kid just one more time."

"You're _not_ telling any of this to that girl," he said flatly.

"But _why_?"

Shinichi snorted; the girl might be Ran's best friend, but. . .

"If that gossip-goose knew about this, she'd tell everyone she knew. Worst case scenario is, that old man shows up."

Suzuki Jirochiki was a man whose sole ambition was to obtain as many headlines and awards as was humanly possible. Both of the times he had shown up at a heist or invited Kid to steal, he had made things easier rather than harder for the thief.

"Hey! That's rude!"

"It's true, isn't it?"

Ran coloured and for a moment he thought he was going to get a karate move aimed in his direction, but then she just kept on walking, if silently.

They had passed a few more streets before either spoke again.

". . . Ne. Shinichi."

"Hn?"

"It – it just – it bugs me."

"What does?"

"Why. . . why would Kid target you specifically?" Shinichi stiffened without realizing it, before hearing the rest of what she said. "I mean, he only sent out notices to you and the Task Force, right? It makes me wonder. Why he'd do that."

Shinichi sighed, but didn't say anything.

"Ne, Shinichi? What do you think?"

Not a word.

--

Classes passed slowly. Painfully slowly. Several times, Shinichi was told off for snapping. It didn't help matters that he was almost unable to sit or stand still for any more than a minute at most, or that his preoccupied state saw him with numerous rash-like blemishes on his skin from the times when he hadn't been able to concentrate on the class, the Kid note and what the Kid note _meant_ without his concentration on what the _sun_ would do to him if he didn't keep a mind's eye on it leaking away to the back of his mind. This in turn made him even more irritable, if that was in fact possible. By the end of the day even Ran had stopped trying to talk to him, though with a little more sympathy if not understanding than any of the others. Ran at least knew of his troubles with sunlight.

When classes finally finished and they were allowed to go home, he waved wordlessly to Ran and headed off in the direction of home, taking the short route.

The next hour and a half was spent in the study, the room's high ceiling allowing for small accidents in height now that he'd had enough practice that accidents in power were few and far between. The ball bounced, flew and rolled under his control as he thought.

_Me. It's me Kid's after. I don't know why, and I don't even understand all of the note_.

The note. If it hadn't been for the way it had been delivered, he would have been open to the idea of forgery; as it was, the idea was laughable at best. No-one but Kid did things like that. Even if the note was at the same time more vague and to the point than his usual warnings.

Pausing for a minute, he took the thing back out of his inner pocket where he'd kept it during the day.

_Rubies and garnets_ – a sure hint towards the fact that Kid had to _know_. Rubies were an obvious and common reference to blood. Garnets being a more vague clue, hinting towards protection and justice.

_Free of glass cages_ – some might see this as another way of Kid saying that he was going to steal, but combined with the rest of the note could only mean that he was simply confirming one thing and making sure Shinichi knew the obvious in one phrase. That he had known that Conan wasn't actually seven years old was a given; so now was the fact that he wasn't Conan any more.

The next line hadn't been too hard to understand either. The lady was another way of calling the moon, and in that context the 'maids' had to be the stars. Which meant the unlikely date of the new moon, a time when Kid had never under normal circumstances made an appearance. The thief wasn't called the Magician in the Moonlight for nothing, so this meant that there had to be some kind of ulterior motive for going against type.

Shinichi sighed and threw himself down into an armchair, letting the ball bounce away from him for the moment. _The only thing I didn't get_, he thought, frustrated, _was the location. Kid's always put in some kind of clue. Which means it has to be in there somewhere – he's sent one to the Task Force as well, hasn't he_?

And that was it. It had to be. Kid's note had been sent out early enough to the police that it had reached the morning papers, and given that both notes were the same – without the small discrepancy of a postscript on the official version – there were more than likely going to be more than just one translation. Especially since not everyone was privy to certain bits of information that would be needed if they wanted _Shinichi's_ translation. Which meant –

_Ugh_.

Double meanings, and a night at the Kaitou Kid Task Force headquarters. Lovely.

Looking at the time and finding that barely even an hour had passed since school had released him, he savoured one last glance at the now immobile soccer ball and headed over to the phone. He had some calls to make if he was going to be included in the meeting.

--

The Task Force meeting had come up with some interesting and varied ideas. Discussion had gone on well into the night, and no few of the men had been debating the matter still right up until the time they had decided upon.

The place that they had converged not more than a day later on was little more than a three-storey gallery, with very little in the way of things that Kid would normally be accused of stealing. Most of what the place held was – in his opinion, at least – tacky jewellery and second rate paintings. There were, however, a couple of items that might hold dubious value to the thief, might fit the search pattern.

Task Force men were scattered throughout the building, a large group of whom were gathered in the two places where the supposed targets were held.

Shinichi was at neither.

Having judged that if he tried to capture the thief so close to the target that he would simply be gassed by a sleep bomb or something equally irritating before being given any chance at all of giving chase, he had decided on one of the central staircases. That way, it didn't matter which way the Kid came from, he wouldn't need _too_ long to intercept.

Apparently, Nakamori had thought along similar lines, because a spattering of men in their riot gear were also with him, one even right beside him, who kept looking at his watch. Which wasn't, actually, suspicious behaviour. _All_ of them were looking at their watches.

According to Nakamori, the way the inspector had seen the note had pointed directly at eleven thirty-five as the time Kid was supposed to make his appearance, or at least make himself noticed.

So far, it was eleven thirty-three, and nervous was just not the word for the atmosphere in that particular stairwell. Or, in fact, the entire gallery.

Eleven thirty-four and counting saw nothing out of the ordinary. A few of the men shifted, and one bent over to whisper something terse in another's ear that Shinichi ignored more than didn't hear.

Tic. Tic. Tic.

Eleven thirty-five and still nothing seemed to have happened. Comments started that perhaps Nakamori had gotten the wrong place from some directions, and from others they just went as still and quiet and stiff as was humanly possible.

That, however, was before the Task Force member beside him had leaned in close, smirked – and he could just _feel_ that smirk – and then whispered in his ear.

"Why, good evening, Tantei-kun."

--

Precious seconds had been wasted between having the thief they were all supposed to be catching and keeping caught whisper a polite greeting in his ear and the time when he had been able to move from the shock and surprise. It had been no surprise that by the time he had started after the thief, said thief was already in his whites and headed away from the scene of the crime, laughing all the while with several – make that most – of the Task Force hot on his heels.

Shinichi had followed in the wake of impending chaos only after a not-to-be-disobeyed command to radio over what had happened to those in charge.

Impending chaos turned out to be a very good summation of what started to happen. So far, there had been no sleep bombs, a couple of flash bombs that had been dropped the few times that he had been out of range enough not to get blinded, several _pon!_ noises as random things appeared and reappeared – a radio, someone's walkman, a set of juggling balls which fell one by one onto unsuspecting officers' heads and an umbrella which promptly got used to cause further confusion before snapping shut and disappearing the Kid himself for a startling moment, before a foreboding quiet overtook them again.

A headcount had come up with the inexorable fact that there were no fewer people now than before, but that hadn't reassured him very much. The Kid was, undoubtedly, still here, and it was likely that the one he was impersonating was, too. Or at the very least, nearby. Even magician thieves had limits to how far they could go and come back within that short an amount of time.

He growled in frustration as the others searched fruitlessly, one of their number looking for himself. It was useless. None of them would be able to figure out which one Kid was; at best they would get a fleeting instant of a trademark smirk before he blended back into the crowd of uniforms, just another face in the crowd, or a glimpse of his face before theirs became the one he was to use next to hide behind. They simply didn't have the skill, speed or power of instantaneous deduction that he did. And he couldn't clone himself, no matter how useful the talent might or might not have been if he did have the use of it.

Aside from that, what was there that he could actually do to figure out who Kid was before he gave himself away? It wasn't as if he had X-ray vision to see through disguises or anything. His vision might be several times better than what it had been when he was human, but he wasn't Superman. He wasn't _that_ powerful. He could only rely on preternatural senses and –

A hand brushed against his shoulder as its owner walked past with a look and a glance that Shinichi _recognized_. A look that wasn't really something that was thought of as one of Kid's expressions, but more importantly, _shouldn't_ be seen on the Task Force rookie he'd seen it on.

He smirked.

_I've got you now, Kaitou Kid_.

--

_That's it . . . just a little closer. . . nearly got me. . . there!_ The Kaitou Kid crowed to himself, displaying it to the world in the form of a great shower of confetti that rained over the men and detective as he discarded yet another face. _Round goes to Tantei-kun!_

The Kid had long since lost count of the number of costumes and faces he'd worn, not to mention lost track of the time since his little game had started. By now even Nakamori-keibu had joined in, screaming colourful curses at him all the while. A while ago, he'd let the inspector sleep while he took his own turn at it, trying to lead his men to catch himself. Unluckily, Tantei-kun had seen right through that little joke within seconds. Spoilsport.

Now, however, with half of the Task Force sleeping peacefully in the galleries and some starting to wake up, it was time to up his game and enter Stage Two of the Great Plan. A plan which Jii and his mother would probably call idiotic and suicidal, but if he was right – and he usually was when it came to suicidal plans – then this would be almost as important as the first time he'd ever put on the Kaitou's mantle.

Almost, anyway. _Nothing_ could really match up to that, as thrilling and terrifying as it had been.

But still. It'd come pretty darn close.

So he continued his acrobatics, treating the laws of gravity with as much respect as the laws of possession as he vaulted the heads of officers and exhibits alike, all the while planning for the next moment and the moment after, keeping in mind what he would have to do if his plan actually _worked_.

The prospect was scary. And yet he looked forward to it. It was the whole reason why he had planned the entire heist, after all. It was his prize, the thing he couldn't steal, the thing he could only be given, the thing which by all rights he would never have been given even two weeks ago. Something he would never have even considered asking for, before the world had gone pair-shaped.

All the same, Kid's grin was fixed in place by Poker Face, and he didn't let it stray from that even when his face was masked completely by the smoke bomb he had just thrown down that was the key to the second part of the plan.

There were about twenty men on that part of the floor, a couple of levels down from the roof. Twenty-one if the person counting included the Kid.

As the smoke cleared, there were twenty-one men in sight on that floor, not including the Kid.

--

Shinichi had long since lost track of time and the number of disguises that he had ripped – albeit with words or attention rather than his own hands – away from Kid's face. Each one had become easier and easier, and at times he wasn't at all sure that he hadn't started to look at the thief before logic kicked in and _told_ him that it was who he had thought it was. At times, it was downright freaky. A good detective was supposed to trust logic and his powers of deduction and at times his intuition. A good detective did not guess, and didn't, shouldn't rely on instinct.

Except –

As he listened to the nervous chatter of the men something caught his attention; a small thing, something that previously even he would not have picked up to be able to take notice of it. The delicate nuances of someone's speech. Something off. Little things now that he saw or heard them. But before, before he'd turned that way, it had simply been a feeling.

An instinct.

He'd been staring in that direction for a while now, and Kid – he was _certain_ of it, now – had done nothing about it. Shinichi blinked and started to half-creep over to that side of the hall, attempting to blend in gracefully. As opposed to the beginning of the night, he was not entirely certain of his victory this time, making him a whole lot more cautious. He almost – _almost_ – had him, before the infuriating Poker Face broke out once _again_, as Kid leapt out above the heads of the Task Force and himself, showering confetti onto all of them and changing into his trademark work suit at the same time.

At least this time he hadn't kept the face mask on. The time he had paraded as Nakamori, even the man's team had known who it was because of the orders he had issued. Not because they knew him that well, but because for the first time that night, the blowhard had actually been commanding them how Shinichi would have – if he had been in charge, that is. When the large number of men had tried to mob him, the Kaitou Kid had responded by taking of the disguise while keeping Nakamori's face. Several had simply stopped, nonplussed, when the Kid's smirk had appeared on the face of the inspector out to catch him, and unless Shinichi's ears had deceived him, more than one camera had clicked or flashed before the rubber mask too was thrown into the crowd.

Back in the present, Kid was performing aerial acrobatics with possibly ancient artefacts. Shinichi darted after him. _At least that's not the direction of the stairwell_, he thought. _Though knowing that guy he could probably make anywhere into the direction of the stairwell_.

Kid was now vaulting from two of the exhibits and flipping back into the crowd of officers, making Shinichi curse. In a crowded place like they were in, he wouldn't be able to use half his natural – or unnatural, if that was how you wanted to think about it – strength and speed. If he had, people would have been hurt, and there was no maybe about it. He would have bumped into someone at speed, and they would have been injured – or worse – and that would have been the end of it. So, of course, he had to move slower than he needed to get to where Kid would be next, making him too slow to get there in time. Too slow to stop the smoke bomb slip out of Kid's sleeve and into his hand and onto the floor and _smash_ and _fill the room with smoke_.

The next few minutes as the dust and smoke cleared out of the air saw Shinichi coughing at both the dust and the overpowering scent of the pink smoke. As it started to clear, someone put their arm around his shoulders and asked him if he was all right. He nodded – he would be, as soon as he was de-smoked. He didn't know whether the person had been the Kid or not. To be truly honest at that point in time, he hadn't cared.

It took only a short while for him to be back at full working power again, and even less time after that to notice that his ability to pick the Kid out had increased in speed, ironically due to the smoke bomb that Kid himself had thrown down. Kid stank of the stuff worse than any of the others did, and this made him easier to pick out in a crowd, even when the crowd had others that had been exposed to the stuff. It was ridiculously easy when others came and the Kid attempted to blend in. With his preternatural sense of smell, Shinichi could tell who he was no matter how good the disguise, even though the similarities between what he was doing and a police sniffer dog didn't exactly do anything to help his pride much.

That said, they were getting closer and closer to the roof, Kid having made them all chase him through the upper levels, leaving the place chock-a-block with sleeping bodies at times.

_That one._

_There._

_There._

_Him._

_That idiot there._

_Got you_. Got you_. Oh, _hell_ no_.

That – _that_ was the door to the roof. Where Kid could escape. Where he could use that darn hang glider of his. The building wasn't all that tall, but it _was_ enough to get away without needing the stairs.

Without anyone else around, it was easy to put on the burst of speed and strength that he needed in order to get to and open the door wide enough before it shut to get through after Kid and out onto the roof in an attempt to stop him from flying away.

"Maa, maa, Tantei-kun. We truly have to stop meeting like this. People will talk."

Flap-flap, flap-flap.

Kid. . . wasn't going anywhere. He was just standing there, hands in pockets and facing away from him, looking up at the sky. Something seemed different about him, odd, off. That smoky smell still drifted off him, though, giving the scene a weird kind of dreamlike quality.

"Ne. Tantei-kun. How long has it been since you were involved in a case that didn't include death?"

_. . . What?!_

"And just what is that supposed to mean?"

A sigh that was almost blown away by the wind was followed by a fluid shrug, lifting and dropping the cape as he did so.

"A simple curiosity."

Shinichi snorted, edging closer as he did so.

"I think we both know that the Kaitou Kid never does anything without more than just _simple_ curiosity."

At this, Kid tilted his head to one side thoughtfully, but not letting any of his face show.

"Then tell me. Why do you think I did all this?"

"Why don't you tell me for once?"

Shoulders shook and the white mantle fluttered. He distinctly heard a faint chuckle.

"Ah. . . but where would the fun in that be? We both have our places, you and I. A thief must steal. Detectives find out their truths. So – isn't it your job to figure out my reasons? It's not that hard." A pause. "Or even illegal."

"Well, it's obviously not because of those two pieces of jewellery you have somewhere on your person." He shook his head. "Too gaudy, too small. . . not what you were after."

"So what was I after?"

The question, though expected, still managed somehow to stop him in his tracks. What _was_ the Kid really after? To tell the truth, he didn't actually know. Something to do with him, but any further than that and he was at a dead blank. What would the Kaitou Kid want with him anyway, other than to get away as fast as possible? There was, of course, the academic point that the thief hadn't been running away from him all the time he had been here.

Kid had been taunting him. Teasing him. Leading him on the whole time.

"You. . ." He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. "You lead me here. There's still some time before that sleeping gas of yours wears off. So my guess is that you wanted to talk."

"Interesting deduction, Tantei-kun. So. If you're right, then what are you going to do about it?"

Shinichi sighed, stopped trying to creep up on him – for the moment.

"Do? Nothing yet, I think. Though I'd say it would have to be something important to have the Kaitou Kid want to stoop to consorting with a detective."

That earned him a chuckle.

"Yeah. . . you could say that." Some of the tension seemed to ease slowly out of the thief, who gave into a sigh and turned around to seat himself lightly on the edge of the wall. "Close enough," he said after a while of silence. "But you still haven't answered my question."

So it really wasn't a simple curiosity, after all. He had doubted as much.

"What has that got to do with you?"

Kid sighed, sounding tired. _World weary, more like it_.

"Murder isn't a nice thing, Tantei-kun. There is . . . a reason why the most important rule of my heists is that no-one gets hurt."

"Things like that happen all the time, Kid. I deal with them."

Kid shook his head, making the monocle's charm chime.

"No, they don't. Or at least they shouldn't. _No-one_ should have to deal with them." There was a pause of a few breaths. "Just because you can deal with what happens afterwards doesn't mean that what happened to that person isn't any less important. Or wrong."

"Why shouldn't I be able to deal, Kid? Who are _you_ to tell me that? I dealt with my _own_."

Kid flinched.

"Yeah. I know you know about me. You all but shouted it out in that damn _heist _note. As if you couldn't have contacted me any other way to tell me things I don't need to hear!"

The thief stood back up, righteous anger speaking in the tension and rigidity of his stance.

"And how would I have done that, Tantei-kun? Would you have listened to a thief? Would you have even considered hearing one out? Forgive me for thinking that it would not have been a good idea to come to you in your own home, or reveal myself in the street, or place a telephone call for Tantei-kun!"

Shinichi stared. The Kid's face was still shadowed, mostly invisible even to his eyesight, making what he was saying, or rather how he was saying it, all the more menacing.

Yet he wasn't afraid. The fact that the Kaitou had just surprised him in such a way simply made them equals – of a sort, in his mind and eye.

Kid – and only Kid so far – had stood up to him instead of trying to commiserate with him. Had gone to him and figured out all of Shinichi's secrets before going to Shinichi, but hadn't kept the fact that he knew them a secret from him.

Shinichi had been angry, but the Kid was still there. He could have run away, escaped, and it would have looked perfectly natural. A thief running from the detective who had cornered him. Nothing more natural. Yet he hadn't. He was standing there, looking angry and calm as ever. He was like a river or something like that, which looked calm on the surface yet was raging away on the inside. Poker Face only covered the face; Shinichi was by now able to read with growing ease the signs of emotions conveyed by breath and pulse and other such small yet vital signs.

The Kaitou Kid wasn't going anywhere until they had finished their talk. If the Task Force somehow managed to break the door down before they were finished, the result would probably be wide scale, highly chaotic, and most certainly embarrassing to both sides. Would most definitely have Nakamori-keibu in fits and swearing for the next month.

Shinichi deflated.

"Why was it so important that you talk to me, anyhow?"

Kid seemed almost startled, surprised that he even had to ask. "Why, I've always enjoyed keeping tabs on my . . . opponents," the thief said lightly, relaxing again and beginning to lean back against the wall once more. _So is that all? Just because I'm an opponent?_ "Not to mention any kind of dangers they get themselves involved in. Or if they might –" here was a hesitation. Kid hardly ever hesitated. "– become a risk themselves. You could say that I like to keep my cards where I can see them."

"So what am I?" Shinichi asked, dark humour lacing his voice. "Opponent, risk or card?"

Kid stared at him for a moment, window lights glinting off of his monocle.

"You know what? I wouldn't mind knowing that myself. You definitely are quite some opponent-" Shinichi snorted "-and everyone is a card. Whether or not you're a risk. . ." he sighed and shrugged white satin. "Well. I suppose that we had better make sure you don't become one, ne?"

By the end of the sentence there was an audible grin on the kaitou's face.

"What do you mean, 'we'?"

"Just like I said. I like to keep an eye on those who could become risks. Due to recent. . . developments. . . I thought that it would be wise to use two in your case. Since I had a feeling that you would rather not- " the thief cut himself off, swallowed hard. Shinichi blinked. This wasn't normal behaviour for the Kid, yet all of his instincts – including his newer ones – told him that it was the kaitou. He could guess, however, what the other had been about to say. _I would rather not become what I usually chase, either_. Kid cleared his throat and continued as if there had been no pause. "So I gave you a gift – of sorts."

Shinichi scowled. "I don't take things from thieves."

The Kaitou Kid chuckled as if he was the only one in on the joke. "Oh, you'll take this, believe me. Besides, it's hardly illegal. It is mine to give you, after all."

The scowl darkened when the Kid laughed again, levered himself up and started to walk towards him. One of the pieces that he had stolen, a small ruby and red glass statuette, was being tossed and caught in one hand. Underneath the wide brim of the white top hat, Kid smirked.

"Although I would love to talk some more, there sadly _is_ a schedule. I simply must go. Such a shame." He then glanced at the item he was holding, as if it was the first time he had seen it. The smirk widened to a grin as Shinichi started to hear the truth of his words – the police were on their way up the stairs, feet thundering. Having seen something in Shinichi's reactions, Kid tossed the statuette into the air for the detective. "Here, Tantei-kun!"

Shinichi cursed the time it wasted, even though there would have been a lot more curses if he hadn't caught the thing. The door was now open, Task Force police officers swarming the roof as Kid headed to the edge, hang glider snapping into place and an arm snapping out behind him with what looked like an ordinary flash or smoke bomb to even Shinichi's enhanced sight yet had a highly more spectacular and devastating effect that had the Kaitou Kid laughing all the way home, the Task Force covering their faces (with some reaching for the odd gas mask which had been out of reach when it had previously been needed) and one Kudo Shinichi mortified with shame and embarrassment at being doubled over, coughing and hacking at the awful stench of essence of sweaty socks.

--

AN: And another one bites the dust. First things first, an overdue thank-you to everyone who has reviewed so far. I really appreciate it. On to other things, and there's the fact that this chapter was at both times irritating and fun to write. At times it felt like it wasn't even going to reach the 2/3000 word mark, but in the end it got to nearly 6000. Neat, that.

The quote up the top was taken from Windfall, by Ysabet. I don't know who said it first, but when I think about it, it reminds me of Kuroba Touichi. The fact that Hakuba isnt' invited isn't because he's BO (god forbid) but that he likes going to Kid heists to try and catch his rival, and in doing so would have thrown a spanner in the works. In saying, please excuse my poor excuse of a note. I don't know enough japanese to do a fancy one, and even this took ages to make it work. Still, it's inspired by the one in Ellen Brand's _Nerves of Steel_, so go read that, do.

The first line that Kid says to Shinichi on the roof is dedicated to Nataeiy1. You know what I mean.

I have started the Hattori Heiji omake. It may appear before the next chapter.


	8. Coping Mechanisms

The Vampire Detective

Chapter eight – Capable of Coping

Disclaimer – I am not male. I am not Japanese. I _am_ a writer.

"_Ever wonder what would have happened if Holmes had taken Lupin with him to Reichenbach Falls instead of Watson?"_ – Kuroba Kaito, the Moriarty Gambit.

Shinichi was doing his best to stalk his way home. He was slouched slightly. His hands were – most of the time – in his pockets. His eyes glowed faintly in the street lights and whenever a car went past. He was scowling fiercely.

The one thing that disturbed that picture, however, was the fact that he was uncontrollably, uncomfortably, non-stop sneezing.

A nearby cat looked up from its usual late-night hunt, startled at the noise. Noting that it was only a strange human that smelled like a predator, the cat daintily half-ignored him and went on its way.

Shinichi disconsolately brought out another – _yet_ another – tissue and hoped that maybe it would be gone by morning.

---

Mid-morning at the professor's, however, still saw him sniffing, even though it wasn't anywhere near as bad as it had been the previous night.

Haibara, true to her scientist self, had all but pounced on him the moment he had walked in the door that morning, still suffering the after-effects of sock-smoke-bomb, insisting that he let her see what exactly was going on with his nervous system that his regenerative cells couldn't handle. He had been extremely mortified to find out that her less problematic sense of smell and her skills as a chemist had shortly concluded that the smoke had included a very small amount of garlic powder. Just another thing for him to worry about. Just another one of those supposed-to-be-a-horror-tale things that actually existed. Even if it didn't poison him, fits of sneezing were nothing to – well – sneeze at. At least he knew that, given his rate of recovery, he would be back to normal in only a couple of hours. If that.

The topic that was under heated discussion, however, was not what had caused Shinichi's sneezing, or even the main event of the previous night – although that did come under scrutiny – and the content of his and the Kid's discussion on the rooftop had not been revealed. No, the _real_ debate was over _what_ Kid had used as a final smoke bomb.

"It's a trap."

"Haibara. You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know perfectly well what I am talking about, Kudo-kun. If perhaps I don't, then it wouldn't be my fault, now would it? Even so, I wouldn't treat this as confidently as you are."

"I'm not treating it confidently! I just don't think the guy's the enemy!"

"And it's not as though you've never made a mistake there, have you?"

"Dammit, I know I've made mistakes before! Look at me; living undead proof! But trust me on this one. I know I can trust him. Somehow."

"Because of your _instincts_, right?"

Somehow she made the whole idea of instincts seem like lunacy in a way that only Haibara Ai could.

"Yes! _No_. Alright, my _detective_ instincts."

This time all the reply he had was a raised eyebrow that spoke volumes of scepticism. Agasa-hakase, who had been watching the whole thing since before it had even started, opened his mouth to try to say something to stop the argument and was once again cut across.

"You expect me to believe that after subtly training your scent analysis throughout the heist, throwing down a stink bomb with the equivalent of his D.N.A in it to you _isn't_ just some kind of elaborate plan? I fail to see your point."

Shinichi sighed, frustrated, and ran a hand through his hair.

"He's not going to ambush me. Can't you see that? If I went looking for him, I could track him down, find out who he is and where he lives, not to mention get the jump on him rather than the other way around. He. . . gave me a weapon. Something I could use against him. If I wanted to." He thought for a moment. "Besides," he said, cocking his head to one side, "I thought you liked Kid."

Haibara scowled at him. "I don't hate him and I have no compulsion to go chasing after him – unlike some people. I don't, however, trust him either."

Shinichi scowled right back at her. "I didn't say that I trusted him, either. He's got a weird mind, for a thief. Even his double meanings have double meanings. Of course I'm not going to let my guard down around him – that'd be stupid."

"I'm glad you-"

"I am going to trace it, though. Today. _Before_ it gets cold. Hopefully without him noticing. Maybe."

"What do you mean, 'maybe'?!"

His face darkened, and he stood up. "Exactly what I said. Maybe." Going over to the fridge, he took something out and pocketed it, then made for the door. The girl chemist opened her mouth to say something else, knowing that he would still hear her, but then shut it again. Even if he heard her, he wouldn't listen to her. Come to think of it, he hardly ever had, even as Conan, when it came down to it. Vampirism didn't help that side of things much, either.

She sighed. Well, thinking like that wasn't going to get her anywhere.

"Ne, Ai-kun. Was what you told Shinichi-kun-"

"_Someone_ had to be the voice of reason. And while I do admit that Kid is just about the least likely person to be an agent for Them, I was telling the truth when I said that I wouldn't trust the thief as far as I can throw him." Which said not very far, owing to her current size. She sighed, and Agasa looked down at her contemplatively. "I do, however, wonder what it is that he is up to. Kudo-kun was right; the Kaitou Kid certainly gave him an incomparable weapon, of sorts."

_And, not that I'll mention it aloud, but it also gave Kudo-kun a reason to trust him. A reason to believe beyond mere words that the Kid trusts him, a thing that I understand only too well. He lost his ability to disguise himself as surely as if he took off the monocle there and then, that Kaitou Kid_. . .

-

Shinichi stopped by home before anything else, to pick up a bottle of water for what could possibly turn out to be a long walk. It wasn't as though he could hop on a bus to get to where he was going after all, especially since he didn't even know where he was going in the first place. He'd have to go on foot, checking every so often to make sure that he hadn't wondered off track.

It was a good thing, then, that his new physiology was tough enough and more. Even if the whole 'tracking a person by scent' thing made him out to look totally ridiculous, at least in his eyes.

He shook his head as he took yet another turning_. I've been through worse embarrassment before. The whole Conan fiasco _was_ an embarrassment. This is nowhere near anything like that. So get over it_.

And get over it he did, or at least enough to get the job done. The next couple of hours were spent, from the moment he reached the back alleys of the gallery house that had been the place of last night's heist and picked up the scent of Kid's departure, trawling through alleyway after alleyway and over walls and even climbing up fire escape routes onto rooftops and having to _jump_ rooftops. It was, however, nothing that he couldn't deal with. Knowing the Kaitou Kid, and knowing also that the thief had been watching him through 'Katie's' eyes, it was probably a route designed specifically for him.

Lovely.

Shinichi grimaced, resting for ten minutes in what appeared to be the same public toilets that Kid had used the previous night to change out of his work clothes and into something a bit more civilian, if the slight change in scent was anything to go by. He leaned against the wall having washed face, hands, and various other parts of him that had gotten dirty – somehow_. How Kid does that without getting filthy, I don't know_. Unfortunately, he didn't have another set of clothes to change into, so he made do as best he could by brushing himself off. That done, he finished the last of his water and headed out of the door, absently throwing the empty bottle into a trash can as he looked at one of the first signposts in his entire strange journey.

One rather large arrow pointed to Tokyo, off in one direction. Others bore other towns in other directions, but only two signs truly caught his attention. One was the sign for Beika, only a couple of kilometres off even though he was sure he had travelled far further than that to get to where he was. The other was the 'you are here' sign, which read Ekoda. Or rather, to be more literal, Ekoda prefecture town centre, half a kilometre that way.

Interesting. It seemed Kid had chosen this particular stop-off point for a couple of good reasons. It made things easier for him as he knew where he was; it also made things harder for him since there were an awful lot more people here than there had ever been in the alleys or roofs of the other half of the route, obscuring the trail.

Shinichi took a deep breath in an attempt to both relax away from unnecessary panic and also sift out unfamiliar smells. Sift right down to the ones he recognized. Right down to – that one. One that was only newly familiar in one sense, yet was both old to him and easily recognizable in another. Smoke and the copper tang of something metal, the clean scent of whiter than white satin combined with invisible sweat from wearing too many masks in one night, not to mention too many costumes. The faint stench of sock-bomb hung wearily on the edges of the crumbs of something sweet, a snack after the heist. . .

He followed it around the town, letting it take him to what seemed like places the civilian persona of the Kid must go to on a regular basis. The patrons of the shops – not to mention a few others on the street, which was almost worrying before he realized what was going on – thought that they recognized him. It didn't surprise him to find this out. After all, the Kid had to look a lot like him to have been able to pull off that prank theatre heist without a mask on of any kind. He recognized the places Kid went to regularly because those had that same scent permeating the air, except without the added reek of intensified sock-bomb.

After a while, though, the trail turned out of the centre of town and towards one of the more suburban areas, a place full of housing rather than shops.

The scent was getting stronger. The last few streets had practically shouted out to him, as if he was kind of predator, and he was entering Kid's territory.

Shinichi hesitated.

If he took this last turning down into the next street, and he had a strange feeling would be his _last_ street, then he would have no choice but to do one of either two things. He could stake out the house, tell the police that he had received an anonymous tip-off, then go in with them and be the one to arrest the Kaitou Kid. Or –

Or he could _not_ do that.

He could take this one last step down into the abyss of the rabbit hole, not knowing where it would take him, and trust in his instincts.

And his instincts said to trust the Kaitou Kid – as much as Kid had to have trusted him. Oh, yeah, he wasn't _that_ dumb. He knew what all this had been for, if not why. Even for that he had a vague idea. The heist had been all about honing his ability to track someone down – specifically Kid himself – simply by using his nose. The little tour around the houses had only been to refine the previous night's work.

Which meant that the Kid trusted him – had to, really – not to abuse that ability to know where – and who – the thief was. It had to be trust. Shinichi knew that, because deep down he remembered that the Kid had found out about Conan, used his knowledge of Conan in the heist note even, yet had never told anyone. In fact, the Kid had helped him avert peoples' eyes to the truth more than once. Whether he had liked it at the time or not.

So the question remained. Stay with the law, protecting the truth and justice, or side with someone who knew all of his dirtiest secrets and still trusted him implicitly? Turn him in, or hand himself over? Possibly turn himself into an accessory to crime? That was what he knew would happen if he walked down that street. Kid had an agenda, and not a simple one, either. If it was simple, the guy wouldn't have enemies.

The answer came when he thought about what he would do _afterwards_. What he would feel and how he would react. What would he do after he had handed the Kid over to the police, handcuffed and helpless? What would he do next? Would he be able to face himself, having done that, without even asking Kid for an explanation? Would he be able to live with himself, knowing that the guy's enemies would probably be able to get to him in jail, and knowing how they had acted towards him in previous heists, to secure an early end for the benign thief?

He later supposed that it was his answers to the above questions that was what really set him moving around that corner, down Ookami street, headed straight for one seemingly inconspicuous house that looked as normal as any of the rest of them, if it hadn't been for the dovecot that he knew was there by sound and the increased number of pigeon droppings in that precise area.

He was at the door and his hand had rung the doorbell before his mind caught up to what his body was doing. Not that he would have done any differently, though.

It took a couple of minutes before the door opened to reveal a woman, probably the same age as his own mother, standing there with an apron on. She had darker hair than Kudo Yukiko, and also had more of a homely, housewife-like look about her. The stern, stubborn set to her and the polite welcome that he saw before it disappeared were all too familiar, though.

Polite welcome stayed for maybe less than five seconds before being replaced by a distant smile; a smile that instantly set off alarm bells in Shinichi's head and made him have to force himself not to smirk even slightly in triumph. Nothing showed on her face, but her heart rate had increased at the sight of him. If she was in any way related to Kid, then she almost definitely knew his face. She had to know who he was, especially since Kid hadn't yet stepped foot outside the house since last night.

"Yes, can I help you?"

Her voice was normal, not low like a whisper or loud enough to warn. Yet he had a problem. He hadn't actually planned this far. Oops.

But then again. . . he might as well have some fun, right?

"Excuse me," he started, sounding far more confident than he felt, "I was wondering if I could speak to someone."

"Of course, but- "

"I was under the impression that the Kaitou Kid lived in this residence."

It was all he could do not to burst out in laughter and snickers. He wasn't telling a single lie; it was all true. He wasn't even making any threats, though he supposed his presence alone might have been seen as one.

Still. The look on the woman's face when he said that was. . . worth it.

"I'm not sure I know what you're talking about," she was now saying, noticeably louder. A warning. Shinichi almost would have winced at the obviousness of it. Her face had given her away, too – or were those signs that only he could see? It didn't matter. "This is not a family that harbours thieves."

_Aha – family. So my first deduction was right. And judging by her age, I'd say that he'd be about my age. Interesting_.

On the outside, he merely cocked an eyebrow at her but no more.

"I never said anything about that," he rejoined mildly. "In fact, I did say that I simply wanted to speak. Not specifically to Kid, either."

The woman's eyes narrowed.

"Maybe if we could step inside and discuss this?"

Narrowed eyes turned into stony, flinty eyes and grimly resolute determination. Maybe he'd moved a _little_ to quickly.

"No," she said, politeness still hanging on by a thread. "I think not. You have no right to be anywhere near my home."

Ouch, that hurt. He resisted the urge to rub his nose and back away from the encroaching static barrier that stood between him and the threshold of the house, one of the more annoying, irritable and downright inconvenient things to have happened during the change. He was just attempting not to be pushed off the porch when a voice – a very familiar voice – cut across them both and somehow halted the barrier's progress.

"Mom?" The voice yawned as its owner made their way slowly down the stairs. "Wha's goin' on here?"

Barely two more steps down the stairs, and everyone froze. The boy on the stairs was practically gaping at the scene played out before him of his mother and Shinichi; Shinichi and the Kid's mother – and he knew it was him, since he still had after-effect of sock-bomb – were both staring at him. Kid's mother was panicking badly and had gone quite pale. Shinichi himself was shocked at how familiar that voice really was. Even coming prepared that they both looked and sounded similar to each other, it still came as a surprise.

Kid was the first one to break the tableau. He grinned suddenly, putting his mother off balance.

"It's all right, mom. We met last night and I kinda told him he could say hi next time he was in the neighbourhood."

Shinichi blinked, then glared. Kid only grinned wider, thumping down the rest of the stairs. He gave her a more natural smile and put a hand on her shoulder in reassurance.

"Really – it's fine. I all but invited him over." He looked back at Shinichi, smirk evident, when she looked like she was about to object. "Besides, if he'd wanted to arrest me, he'd have brought Nakamori-keibu, right?"

Kid looked to him and reluctantly, Shinichi nodded.

"There! See? Nothing to worry about."

She turned away with one last worried, and in Shinichi's case wary, look and disappeared out of sight – presumably to the kitchen, where there were smells of cooking. The moment she was out of hearing range, however, Kid leaned laconically against the wall, irritating smirk in place on his face.

"So. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"You're admitting everything that easily?" Shinichi rebuffed, frowning with a little confusion.

Kid snorted, smirk not wavering. "It's hardly as though I could hide from you anymore, Tantei-kun. You'd know if it wasn't me."

True. He would know, now.

"And you feel so comfortable talking in the open like this. . . how, exactly?"

The other shrugged. "I'm not. But that wouldn't make much of a difference if we don't shout or do anything stupid." He let the smirk tone down into a rather nonchalant smile, lifted a hand in a play of inspecting his nails.

Shinichi felt like shouting something incomprehensible in frustration.

"This," he said through gritted teeth, "is not getting us anywhere."

"You're right," said the Kid, suddenly straightening up and doing a near-to-perfect imitation of Shinichi himself, ironic and well chosen for their likeness. "This isn't getting us anywhere."

A glint of the Kid's humour leaked through the mask and into his eyes.

"Stop that," the real Shinichi said irritably. "Anyone who looked close enough would know now, at any rate. I move differently, I'm paler and people tend to back off quickly when I get angry."

A disgusted look crossed the thief's face for a moment, but there was still mischief in those blue-violet eyes.

"You're no fun, you know that? Spoilsport." With a sigh, he backed into the hallway a bit to give Shinichi space to come in and take his shoes off. "Fine, then. I oh-so-humbly invite you into my magnificent abode," he said, quite obviously making opposites out of almost everything; almost, because the moment the words were said Shinichi felt the invisible barrier dissipate and it was with embarrassed relief that he stepped inside and changed from shoes to house slippers.

"You know," Kid said as he led him into the house proper, "I kinda didn't expect you to come over quite so quickly."

"It was a spur of the moment thing," the detective answered dryly. "Not unlike your heist and its accompanying note, I'm sure."

Kid started to chuckle with an almost embarrassed note in his laughter, but was interrupted by a traitorous yawn.

Shinichi himself attempted to hold back laughter at the lack of control the action showed, failed.

"Late night, Kid?"

A sour look was shot his way.

"No thanks to you. It took ages for you to get the point! And then leaving that trail . . . Besides, don't call me that here."

"Call you what?"

"Kid."

Shinichi bit back a retort saying that it was who the other boy was, or that it was the only thing he knew him by. It wouldn't help, here.

"Then what do I call you?"

Hesitation – from the palpable pause to the frozen foot just about to step onto the first step of the stairs. For a moment, he could almost feel the Poker Face, but then it sort of slid off, still half covering, but also half revealing. He carried on up, and Shinichi followed.

"Call me Kaito. Kuroba Kaito. It's my name."

Something in his old instincts – the ones that had told him that men in black were bad and that he could trust the Kaitou Kid – something in _them_ told him that what had just occurred was under no circumstances to be taken lightly.

He knew Kid's name. His real name. Not just a designation or disguise; this was his real life. He knew as surely as if the Kid had given him away to Ran before two weeks ago _his_ world would have collapsed, so now did he have control over the Kid.

It was an almost irony, really. Both had some sort of sway, some sort of knowledge to blackmail the other, leading them into a pretty little standoff if that was what they wanted. All hell could break loose, if one person took one wrong step.

So, of course, he simply nodded, then continued to follow the Kid – no, Kuroba Kaito – up the stairs.

It came as little to no surprise that the room he was lead to wasn't actually Kid's – Kuroba's – room, but instead a sort of miniature entertainment suite, complete with stereo system and a large television, not to mention the rather big sofa to watch TV from. A couple of games consoles were stacked in one corner, and, perhaps most notably of all, there was a prominent portrait in the middle of the opposite wall to which he had come in by. Various papers were scattered all over the place, not a few books, and there was a computer half-buried by post-it notes just in front of the small window.

"Now this," the other boy said with no little relish and punctuating his words by throwing himself onto the sofa, "is where we can talk freely. Anything you like. Ask and I'll answer – within good reason, of course."

Shinichi sat himself down at the other end and crossed his arms.

"Just how," he demanded with a trace of bemusement, "did you know that I had to be invited in?"

The other boy laughed, a mix mostly of embarrassment but also of a little pride.

"Easily, actually," came the answer. "Especially when you've got police record access codes to read your case reports."

"That's illegal," he said flatly, disapprovingly. The other just shrugged and looked with a distracted air at the portrait – it had to be Kaito's father, and judging by surname and profession, most probably was Kuroba Touichi. Before Shinichi could dwell on that thought for very long, however, the younger Kuroba caught his attention by talking again.

"I only needed to read a few of the reports to spot the trend. Warrants, written invites to investigate, the police asking you to help them with your deductions. . . it all lead up to one thing, really. The fact that most the other times recorded that you somehow got yourself an invite of some kind. . . it was obvious."

"If you knew to look."

"Yup."

Shinichi sighed and leaned back, closing his eyes. For someone who had simply knew where and how to look, his every secret had been as obvious as if he had committed a crime right in front of his own eyes, making sloppy mistakes and tripping every alarm, caught in the act. But not by himself; by the boy sitting just across the sofa from him. The boy acting as if everything that he had found out was nothing, at best new fodder for jokes and pranks.

As if it didn't matter.

". . . _why_?"

He didn't even know that he had spoken the word, the question, until it was being answered.

"My. . . father. I bet you've worked it out by now. If you hadn't, it wouldn't have taken you long."

Kuroba Kaito sighed and Kudo Shinichi nodded. The pieces of the puzzle had all been there in the detective's head, but as the other spoke those words, they came together as easily as if he had said the blunt truth.

The Kaitou Kid who had disappeared eight, nearly nine years ago now, had been Kuroba Touichi. He didn't need to glance back at the portrait to see the similarities between the white tuxedo, top hat and doves of the magician and the Kid.

"They told me eight years ago that he'd died in an accident," Kaito said in almost a monotone, and even though Shinichi knew that his heart was racing he didn't say anything about it. "I was there. I didn't see much. But the police and everyone else all agreed that it was an accident, and that was what I grew up believing."

Something horrid made its way into Shinichi's stomach – he had a gut-wrenching idea where this was going.

"It wasn't, right?"

Kaito looked up, nodded once.

"I found out a few months before our first meeting last year – someone was pretending to be Kid, and I'd challenged myself that I was a better magician than Kid." A humourless laugh escaped the thief before continuing. "I found out that night. Found the costume and the equipment." Kaito made a movement of his head, almost assessing Shinichi. "Before that point, and up until the person who had been impersonating Kid told me the truth, I _hadn't known_. Hadn't known that _my dad_ had been Kaitou Kid. Hadn't known that he'd been _murdered_."

Shinichi saw the fists clench. He didn't say anything. After a minute or two of silence Kaito grew himself a smirk.

"That was when I decided that I'd track down the guys who killed dad and make them pay. I figured that if the Kaitou Kid was suddenly back in action, it'd lure the bastards out into the open and maybe make them stupid enough to get seen."

Shinichi snorted, not about to laugh.

"That – that has to be the most suicidal plan that I've ever heard."

"And like you're any better!"

He froze at the indignant retort, reminded of smoke and Japanese in the accents of New York. A scene from the rabbit-hole. Kuroba didn't notice or ignored it, though – moments later he was continuing his story.

"In any case," he said lightly, "my plan worked and then some."

"Don't tell me – snipers?"

He received a sardonic smile for his efforts.

"Yeah, snipers. That, and information."

"_What!?_"

"Don't get me wrong, they didn't think they were telling _me_ anything. I simply. . . overheard through happenstance."

Shinichi snorted. "Yeah, right."

Kaito surprised him by shooting him a quick grin.

"You're right. But the important thing was that from that, I found out what it was that they made dad try and find before he decided that he didn't like dealing with them. I found out what they thought it could do. What they know about it, and how it's supposed to look."

"And?"

Kaito gave him a sideways glance, unreadable. Not Poker Face unreadable, just different.

"At the time, I wasn't sure whether they were talking about something imaginary or even if it was real but simply blown out of all proportions. There were some people I met around the place that made the second seem maybe unlikely, but meeting you like this makes me think that maybe they were talking literally."

"About _what_?"

And if Kuroba didn't stop talking in Kid-riddles soon, he'd scream.

"The Pandora Gem," said the thief in a matter of fact voice as he started to tick points off on fingers. "Gem within another gem; supposed to shine red in the light of the full moon; supposed to weep tears of immortality, too – though how a gem can weep is beyond me."

He blinked. The thief blinked back at him. He almost gave the other a mouthful about copying people, but instead found himself blinking again.

"That," he said seriously, "has to be one of the most insane things that I have ever heard."

Kaito gave him a Kid smirk.

"So I suppose that the empty plastic wrapper I saw sticking out of your jeans pocket earlier was just for show, and it was ketchup or something smeared inside, right?" The Kid Smirk wavered and toned down, became quite simply a sad smile. "Even when you're a living example of what's supposed to be impossible, you still stick you what you think is the truth. There's one difference between us there – you eliminate the impossible while I look for the improbable."

Shinichi blinked again.

"Well, that is one way of putting things mildly." Not all that bad, either. In even the ways that he and the Kid – Kuroba – were similar, even then they had their differences. "Though I find it hard to believe that this isn't just some trick you've fallen for."

Kuroba snorted. "You're still trying to eliminate the impossible, Tantei-kun. Now, while I may be as optimistic as the next magician, as a thief I gotta admit to being more than a little pragmatic at times. It doesn't help to have a plan blow up in your face without a backup," he added with a tilt of his head towards Shinichi. "Okay. Try to imagine a world where such a thing _is_ possible. Think of the implications. Bad guys. Big gem that grants immortality. Bad guys meet big gem that grants immortality. Boom! Big bada boom!" The magician waved his arms about to illustrate the last point. "Not good, see?"

Shinichi stared. _I somehow can't bring myself to believe that this was the guy I was chasing sometimes_.

Kaito sighed and ran a hand through his messy hair, making Shinichi start slightly at the seriousness of the gesture.

"Look," the magician-thief finally said, looking him straight in the eye. "Look at it this way, if you find it hard to believe me any other way. The way you are now – you're dangerous, right?"

That went without saying. He nodded, with a bare inkling of where this might be going.

"Some of that's because you're pretty strong, I know. And you're fast. Heck, you're basically a super-detective. But think of it this way – what if you weren't all that, but you still had that nifty healing ability I haven't seen but I've heard of? What then? You can't refute yourself. If you even only had gadgets but had that on your side, what would you be able to do? Worse – what would _they_ be able to do?"

Oh. _Oh_. He hadn't thought of it that way before. Now that he was, he found that the idea of it was scaring him. He wasn't immortal – even what Haibara had found out only pointed towards extended longevity and a non-changing appearance – but he was darn close to it, and if what the Kid was searching for really was real. . .

"I get it," he said at last, carefully choosing his words. "If that thing really exists, it's dangerous – to them and to us. That's why you're after it, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Then. . . what are you going to do with it once you _have_ it?"

Kaito started, surprised. "What do you think I'm going to do with it? They killed my dad for that! I'm going to make it so that no one ever has to get hurt because of that thing again. I'm going to _destroy_ it. What? Did you think that I wanted to end up like you? I'm sorry if this hits a sensitive spot, Tantei-kun, but _no thanks_."

For a few minutes there was a tentative silence, then Shinichi let out a breath he didn't even know that he had been holding in.

"Good."

Good because that meant Kaito wasn't interested in the power – in any way. Good because that meant that Kaito was more interested in justice than revenge, even though by the seems of things he had more reasons than even Shinichi. Good because, no matter that he was a thief, the Kaitou Kid wasn't a murderer or even the worst of criminals, and Kuroba Kaito was a good person, so far as he had been able to see. Good because for some reason, he didn't want Kuroba to have to end up behind bars.

"Then that's it," he said finally, noting that the thief was looking at him strangely. "I'm helping."

The reaction was instantaneous, and not entirely what he had been expecting. Kuroba shook his head emphatically, almost jumping out of his seat as he did so.

"No! No way. They _shoot_ at heists where they think I'm onto something! You investigate murders, but this is different, Kudo. You'd have to keep up with me, or lie to the Task Force, or something even worse. You'd be breaking the _law_!"

Shinichi merely raised his eyebrows at the outburst.

"I think that you're mixing me up with someone else," he said mildly. "Shrimp, smart, wears glasses that used to belong to his father and goes by the name of Edogawa Conan." The now-teenaged detective crossed his arms. "I _am not_ that little boy any more, Kuroba. I can take my own risks. Now more than ever. Not to mention the fact that I have known for a very long time that sometimes, if you have to get to the truth, you can't always get there by _legal_ means. Where else did you think that Conan's records came from?"

Kuroba's eyes widened, in small shock and sudden understanding, but he shook his head mutely.

"I'm still saying no. What if someone recognizes you and gets a lucky shot in? You can still _die_. It's bad enough having Hakuba chasing after me without you sticking your head in and actually actively trying to help!"

"_Look_," Shinichi growled standing up in one fluid motion that denied anything other than what he was. "You said yourself that you don't want to end up like me. So _listen_ to me."

"But what if- "

Shinichi snorted. "I won't die easily the way I am now. So you don't need to worry about me."

"But even if what you're saying is true," Kaito said forcefully, so as not to be cut across again, "what if you got changed again? Pandora's supposed to give immortal life. We don't know- "

Shinichi laughed, once, with a hint of bitterness.

"What can it do to me? I'm already immortal, or as close to it as I'll ever be."

Moments passed, and neither spoke. The vampire detective sighed and went over to lean against the wall.

Footsteps of the stairs and the two were both on high alert – until, that is, Kaito's mother appeared in the doorway.

"I was going to ask you whether you needed anything, except Aoko-chan just arrived, and-"

"Hey, it's okay, mom. The two of us can go on down and Kudo here can meet Aoko."

The woman smiled, reassured by her son's smiles and the promise that they would be right down, not in the least that, at least for that moment, the two had seemed to be getting along.

Before either of them headed down the stairs, however, Kaito turned to Shinichi with a far-away, wistful look in his eyes.

"Nakamori Aoko," he said deliberately, "Does not know."

"About you, or me?"

"Both," said the thief. "And if you till her about me, I'll be shooting one thin piece of wood pulp up where the sun never shone. Got it?"

Shinichi smiled wryly and nodded once before following the thief back down the stairs to where the mother and the friend were talking. He doubted somehow that the other would go quite that far, but although they both had different reasons, he quite understood the sentiment.

--

The rest of that day was spent with the telling of tales, and the four got to know each other. Once Aoko left and the tension of her ignorance was lifted, Shinichi told his story in full, of how he had ended up as Conan, how he had coped and finally, his side of the case where everything had changed and turned his world upside down for a second time.

He didn't tell the other boy everything. He hadn't told anyone everything. He doubted even Hattori, who seemed to know more than anyone else, even without the panicked phone call, knew exactly what he had been through.

Kuroba Kaito the magician-thief didn't say anything, though, even though he must have known. He had just listened and nodded, sometimes with a joke thrown in, appropriate moment or not. Somehow, instead of being insulted, he had felt more accepted. It just reassured him that the thief really _didn't_ care.

He had stayed for dinner, and left not long after that. Not only had he found himself needing the time to think all of this through on his own, but he had been getting increasingly confused, bemused and amused by the seemingly endless list of stories that Kuroba's mother told about their families – apparently, the two women had met during Kudo Yukiko's time under Kuroba Touichi, and both he and Kuroba listened avidly when the wife of the late phantom thief told of various incidents both humorous and serious when a previous detective turned author and magician turned thief had had their encounters.

It was certainly an experience to hear things such as these from the other side of the police tape. Definitely not one that he would have ever thought that he would have the pleasure of having.

For the next couple of days after Shinichi's visit to Ekoda, the two remained in contact. Sometimes for things that were related to cases or heists, with one asking for the specific knowledge of the other. Other times were for more innocent points of interest, yet in many ways the idea that they could be forming more than a simple alliance of forces was a stranger and more alien concept.

Yet at the same time, it seemed just as natural as the rivalry that came from being a detective, and a thief.

--

AN: This chapter was brought to you with references to - Inuyasha (the whole tracking theme), the Price You Pay series (specifically, the second chapter of :For Freedom), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (invitations ^____^), Relative Truth (various, including just how well they get on as well as the last few paragraphs and Kaito's hacking skills), not to mention the story that inspired this originally, Ellen Brand's Supernatural series. If you've read that one, then you'll understand what I mean. Kaito also makes a hint to towards the movie Fifth Element.

I may or may not add a missing scene where Aoko meets Shinichi. I dunno. Omakes two and three are upcoming, including appearances from Nakamori-keibu and Shinichi himself, and there may be a guest in number three. On another note, I've started a C2 for all 'Shinichi and Kaito are related' stories. I'm open to suggestion as to what to put in so long as it's a blood relation.

I'm scaring myself with how close to the climax and completion this story is. It's already a chapter over HPCS. Things will start to come to a head next chapter.


	9. Captured in her Eyes

The Vampire Detective

Chapter nine – Captured in Her Eyes

Disclaimer: Would Aoyama do what I'm doing to these people? I Very Much Doubt It.

_You don't waste no time at all  
Don't hear the bell but you answer the call  
It comes to you as to us all  
We're just waiting  
For the hammer to fall _– Hammer to Fall, Queen

-

The sun was shining, birds were singing, trees were turning golden russet colours in the autumn and there was only a hint of late September chill in the breeze.

For most of that part of Japan, a pleasantly peaceful start to the morning. For some, it was. For others, stuck in a classroom with a mop-wielding girl and a magician who was being chased by said girl around the classroom while still being able to pay attention to the lesson, not to mention snipe back at the high school detective also in the same class, it wasn't as peaceful.

But then again, if things had been peaceful in that particular classroom, they would have been more worried than not.

At that precise moment in time, Kuroba Kaito was flipping over an irately wielded mop.

"GRrrrr! KAITO! Take that _back_!"

Kaito laughed, not even pausing when the mop hit wood where his head had been moments before.

"Kuroba," Hakuba stated blandly, still reading his mystery novel and not flinching no matter how close the two came, "perhaps it would be better if you apologised to Nakamori-kun."

In almost no time at all, Kaito was practically sprawled in front of the detective's desk, arms crossed right where the book had been and wearing what he hoped to be a most infuriating smirk. "And why should I? It's not as though I said anything that wasn't true. After all, no one _can_ catch the Kaitou Kid! Not even you."

Hakuba stiffened. "I assure you that if I had been there, the Kid would have been in cuffs before the heist was over. You cannot simply assume that I can't catch Kid just because I wasn't there."

"Eh?" Aoko had finally stopped swinging the mop around at her friend, and was now staring at the interplay between the two rivals. "I'm sure you would have known about it. Why weren't you there then, Hakuba-kun?"

Hakuba went very still, presumably not wanting the general public to know that he had done as Kid had wished and stayed away simply by a favour. Kaito's smirk grew to full-blown, as close to a Kid-smirk as he could get away with without being recognized.

"I had a prior engagement that was impossible to escape from, I'm afraid," he said, aiming a glare at Kaito. "There was no way around it."

Aoko sniffed and pouted, then seemed to remember something.

"It doesn't matter that you weren't there anyway, because there was another detective who even got one of the targets back from Kid. He almost _caught_ Kid," she added, giggling slightly.

Kaito's look turned sour. Kid had _given_ Kudo that ugly thing, and . . . alright, maybe the vampire could have caught him if he had wanted to, but he hadn't, and Kid had escaped with the upper hand.

Aoko, however, was not finished.

"It's really funny," she was saying. "I met him the other day, and you'll never _believe_ where!"

Hakuba's expression turned from curious to wary.

"Enlighten me."

"At Kaito's!" The British detective turned with wide eyes to look at said magician only to see the Kaitou Kid suspect nodding, smirk back on his face if only for a few moments. "They said they met a while back at one of the Kid heists and they kept bumping into each other since, but that was the first time they saw each other when it wasn't just coincidence or something! Which is really weird, because I've never seen two people who look more alike, and I told this idiot's mom about it and she said it ran in the families! Would you believe that? Their families knew each other but they didn't. At least, not until recently, that is."

By this time, maybe half the class were watching her, and Hakuba was watching Kaito with a strange expression on his face. A disbelieving expression.

"Now that," he said at last, "I find hard to believe."

"But it _is_ true, Hakuba-kun," the magician said with saccharine innocence. "Why, don't you even know who it was?"

"It's not Hakuba-kun's fault he doesn't know!" Aoko said, butting in again. "Kudo-kun just doesn't like too much publicity since being in that big case of his for ages."

There were a couple of moments while some of the girls around them went quiet, having overheard the all-important name, and in which Kaito grinned, privately pleased that not many people had linked the famous Kudo Shinichi to the unknown detective who now acted almost behind the scenes. Hakuba's eyes narrowed, however.

"I've heard of him," the detective said slowly. "Now – it leaves me wondering why would a good detective such as he would become a friend to the Kaitou Kid."

Kaito blinked, then laughed.

"You flatter me, Hakuba-kun, you really do. But you see, I'm not him; the Kid is a much better magician than I'll ever be."

Hakuba's gaze sharpened on him, likely catching the whimsical look in his eyes as he spoke.

"A very . . . _interesting_. . . view on the matter, Kuroba-kun. Quite as interesting as your choice of . . . _allies_."

The new voice belonged to Koizumi Akako, purring her words and attempting to drape herself across Kaito, who was extricating himself from the position he was in on Hakuba's desk before the situation could turn embarrassing. He succeeded, which resulted in Koizumi being draped across Hakuba's desk and Kaito himself seated demurely on the table across from them. That done, he sent a pointed look at the witch.

"Ne, Koizumi-san. I'm not sure what you're talking about."

Koizumi pouted at having lost her chance at Kaito, but didn't move. Instead, she smiled at him with about the same amount of pleasantry as a lioness on the hunt.

"You shouldn't be so naive, Kuroba-kun. Doves and crows do not usually get on well. . . and ravens have generally. . . encouraged that. I trust you know what happens when crows gather, correct?"

"I'm afraid you're speaking in riddles again, Koizumi-san. I can't say that I understand what you're talking about. You're still not making any sense."

That said, the tone that he had been speaking in, though normal enough to pass for 'nothing wrong' definitely said 'don't go there'. The witch sent him an amused glance.

Aoko shot a confused look between the three – detective, witch, and magician-thief, if she only knew.

"Ne, Akako-chan. Aren't you at all interested in Kudo-kun? You usually get a strange look in your eye whenever there's a new boy around."

Hakuba and Kaito traded glances, for once in one mind about something, but Akako herself only sniffed daintily and turned her nose in the air.

"I'm not all that interested in him, dear. I only have interest in boys who are alive."

Kaito's eyes widened slightly, but put her knowledge down to more Koizumi weirdness. Hakuba and Aoko however, along with the rest of Akako's followers – the entire class and the teacher who had just entered the room – had looks of confusion and complete bafflement.

After all, it wasn't as if just anyone could have understood what she had just said.

--

_Ding – dong_.

Ran got up and went down the stairs to answer the door, Shinichi trailing along behind as she wondered who it could be. Opened the door and –

"Why, hello, ojousan!"

That voice. That face. She twisted around but Shinichi was still there, though now looking annoyed. The other boy was still there too, rakish smile and all. Her eyes widened.

"You're - ? But you've got to be - ! And - !"

She looked between the two, then back at Shinichi, vaguely noting the door close behind her. "But why aren't you _doing_ anything? You're a detective, aren't you?"

"Kid and I," he said indignantly, confirming her suspicions and shooting a mild glare at the thief behind her, "have an agreement."

"Yup!" The Kid was a lot more relaxed than she had expected, especially with Shinichi right there. "I don't bark and he won't bite!"

"_Kuroba_!"

Shinichi's voice was thunderous, but what she was more surprised by was that it was only frustration – and amusement. That person – the thief, who Shinichi had called 'Kuroba', had joked about what Shinichi was. . . and hadn't had his head bitten off or been glared at.

_Who. . . is that person?_

She stared as the Kid laughed and Shinichi only crossed his arms.

"Why," he asked at last, "Are you here?"

"What? Aren't I allowed to say hello without sending you a notice first?" The Kaitou turned back to her and gave a short yet eloquent bow. "The name's Kuroba Kaito. It's good to be meeting you for the first time as myself, ojousan."

"Eh? Ah – right. Um. . ." _Would anyone please mind actually telling me what's going on here?_

But apparently neither of them were able to pick up on her total incomprehension, as the next thing she knew, the two almost-twins were heading up the stairs and towards her father's office where she and Shinichi had previously been talking and attempting to clear up while 'Tousan himself was out playing mah-jong. She stared after them for a moment before following, promising herself that she _was_ going to get explanations, somehow. Even if she had to drag it out of them with karate.

"Could you at least warn me next time? _Before_ you arrive at the door."

A snort. "You weren't doing anything too important, were you? No? I didn't think so."

"I was talking with _Ran_, idiot."

"And clearing up someone else's mess." Kuroba had that tone of voice that she recognized from Shinichi, a smugness that came when he knew that he was right, except – more relaxed.

Shinichi sighed as he opened the door and went in, holding the door for Kaito and Ran and then going to sit down at the same sofa in front of the TV that he had made use of so often while Conan. There were still even a couple of Kamen Yaiba comics that hadn't been cleared up yet lying almost forgotten and dejected in odd places. Ran knew that there were still child-like drawings pinned up on the fridge with Conan's name on them; not only would it have been suspicious to have taken them all down as soon as Shinichi returned, but that particular one ironically had the beginnings of the kanji for Shi – for Shinichi – rubbed out in the corner where Conan's name had been written.

"Spill it, Kuroba. What are you here for?"

Kaito's eyes widened in an innocent act. "Me? Want anything from you?" He chuckled lowly. "Believe me, Kudo, if I _wanted_ something from you, _then_ I'd think of sending you a note. Nah – just dropped in to say hello."

"What? With no ulterior motive?"

"Do I always need one?"

"Should I believe you?"

The phantom thief turned apparent friend of meitantei Kudo Shinichi looked at her, pleading with blue-violet eyes that were a few shades short of Shinichi's own blue.

"Ne, Ran-chan, is he _always_ like this?"

Ran couldn't help it any longer. They were both looking at her, almost in the exact same way, except of course for the fact that Shinichi was paler and, well, all vampire-y. Both looked so annoyed-yet-amused, just like she had seen Shinichi look sometimes when she got into silly arguments with either her or other people.

She laughed.

--

The next day passed normally. Almost too normal. There weren't any murders, neither Ran's father nor Shinichi himself were called for any cases, and lessons were boring.

At least, Shinichi thought, that meant that he could spend some quality time with Ran, without being interrupted. Too often he tried to do something or take her out somewhere (not even thinking about Tropical Land – they hadn't been back there since he had gotten his old – or was that new? – body back) and every, all right, almost every time, something had happened.

So in one sense, he supposed that he should be glad and thankful for the break.

But somehow, for no apparent reason, something felt wrong. It was a feeling that had the hairs on the back of his neck standing up on end, sent shivers down his spine and put him off his food.

Something was wrong.

Around evening, Hattori phoned. Luckily for Hattori yet less so for him, whatever was setting him off wasn't from Osaka, as the Western detective hadn't heard wind of anything going down in or around his hometown other than the normal.

He told his friend about the Kid heist, shortening the story so that certain details were edited for length and confidentiality. He didn't know how the other detective would react if he revealed that there had been an opportunity to catch the Kid, yet he hadn't taken it, or the fact that the Kid had just dropped by the previous day to hang out. Apparently.

So he edited things, yet again, feeling better for telling them even like this than just not telling anyone. And after cautioning Hattori to be careful and on the lookout for anything weird, the conversation had drifted, then ended.

It was good to be able to talk without having to shout at the other boy, having to remind him not to say certain things aloud in public, that his name wasn't supposed to be Kudo Shinichi. It was good to be able to claim that name in public again. To be that person. Any other secrets that he had picked up along the way could be hidden by simply pretending that they didn't exist. Neither he nor anyone else that he knew – apart from one part-time thief, of course – liked to bring up certain subjects even in secure conversation.

Occasionally, something would creep into talk, like Hattori idly wondering if, now that he wasn't completely human, ofuda and omamori would work differently with him, or the times when Shinichi brought up how being able to sense things more acutely was both blessing and hindrance in investigation. For one thing, if blood and bodies had stunk rooms out before, they reeked now. He had taken to carrying a handkerchief around that had been coated with a mild perfume. Sometimes he got looks, but it was better than the alternative. Plus, it made Ran laugh.

He stood up and started to pace, unable to stay still for so long with so much on his mind.

Just when things started to seem as though they were getting not back to normal but at least back to something better than they had been, this comes up.

He felt like it was there, right under his nose, and he still couldn't see it with all the insight and knowledge of a detective nor with the heightened senses and instincts of a vampire.

--

Koizumi Akako scowled.

She had every reason too as well. Oh, it was nothing to do with that _Kudo_ boy – she knew by now that he had been the one in the helicopter so long ago now, the one who exceeded even Hakuba for sheer dominance of willpower, for the cunning of the devil himself. She didn't mind losing him in some ways. At least it was to a kind of nobility, even if the fool had seemed to be resisting it the last time she had checked with her crystal ball.

It didn't hurt to keep an eye on the opposition after all, especially when those could be allies or hindrances in her war over the Kaitou Kid's heart.

No, it wasn't him. It wasn't even Kaito, who hadn't appeared as the Kid other than to find his new playmate in quite a while, and had been relatively quiet in class for most of the day, mostly due to the absence of his favourite skirt to flip.

No, the reason that Koizumi Akako was scowling and her manservant had been too nervous to approach her in the last hour or so, was because she had tried to practice a scrying spell. Then a foretelling.

Needless to say, neither had worked.

In the end, she gave up on her private practice and called upon Lucifer to ask – very politely, of course, as it wouldn't do to anger him – what in the seven hells was going on.

Lucifer had answered her, but she hadn't liked what she had been told.

So, now, Koizumi Akako was scowling.

And maybe she was plotting.

--

The day had started out well enough, and he had arrived at school on time. Early, in fact, early enough to see exactly when every student arrived and who they were. Notes were taken, but for once they weren't on the investigation of a criminal.

The day had worn on, normality of school life almost chafing after the chaos that he had become used to. By the time lunch came around he had decided for sure – he would have to speak to that person soon.

Because Ekoda high had been one person short, for three days running, and that person's people closest to them knew nothing about the disappearance.

By the time the school day had ended, it was all he could do to stop himself counting the ticks of the classroom clock and wondering how many minutes late the teachers' watch was.

When class was finally over and they were filing out of the door to go home, he stopped the person in his tracks by clamping an hand down on his arm.

"Kuroba. We have to talk."

Kuroba's eyes widened and he tried to shake the hand loose, only to have Hakuba tighten his grip. The arm tensed, proof of a quiet sort of power that screamed danger if he didn't let go right now, but Hakuba Saguru was no stranger to danger, especially when it involved this particular person. He didn't release his grip.

"Hakuba. Let me go."

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that. Not when I know that the moment you head out of that door, you are going to be either causing or getting into trouble that is probably over your head, Kaitou Kid or not."

He didn't miss the sharp hissed intake of breath from the other boy, but he couldn't mistake the flat glare that came from the usually high-spirited magician and troublemaker.

"Someone's got Aoko. I'm not gonna just let them get away with that."

Hakuba shook the boy around so that they faced each other properly but didn't let go of the arm, knowing full well that he was probably leaving bruises – all for the better, in his opinion. If Kuroba felt the pain, then maybe he'd be open to other sensations and logics as well.

"And you think that you're the only one who cares for her? What about her father? The rest of the Task Force? I have noticed them over the past couple of days, and don't tell me that you haven't seen Nakamori-keibu, because you live on the same street. Don't delude yourself by making yourself believe that you are the only person who can either care about her or do something about what has happened."

If anything, Kuroba's glare intensified.

"You shouldn't be getting involved in this," he said in an uncharacteristically clipped voice. "They're my problems –"

"Your problems?! We're talking about Aoko!"

"And I'll find her!"

At last, Hakuba released his hold on the other boy's arm only to throw them up into the air in both desperation and frustration.

"You – you are being an idiot! If I ever thought that you were at all clever, I take it back now. You are obviously a fool of the highest order! Otherwise you wouldn't be acting like one and believing that your are quite ready to go after men who are obviously dangerous!"

The air around Kuroba stilled, and the small part of himself that still flinched at Kid heists started to wonder if running away would be a good idea while the larger part of him that was a detective wondered what it was that he must have said in order to make Kuroba so completely still and . . . _controlled_ . . . as opposed to the magician who never stopped moving. It reminded him of the Kid, and yet it was only when the Kid had been serious, and whatever made Kid serious was not something to sneeze at.

"Men. How do you know that? Did you see? Who told you?"

The stillness was more like a full-body Poker Face. It let nothing out. Which, in and of itself told him everything that he might want to know about Kuroba Kaito's emotions. He ran a hand through his hair to stave off the coming headache he knew was just bound to come sooner or later.

"I was asking around, and I took notes. Unfortunately, I was unable to gain specific times for any of the occurrences, but one person reported that she saw Aoko-kun enter a car with a nondescript man wearing what appeared to be a black trenchcoat."

If he had thought that Kuroba had been tense before, it was nothing to bear on what his words had apparently affected him with now. The magician's fingers twitched.

"Are you _certain_? Confident of the person who told you that? _Are_ you?"

He gave him a terse nod.

"Definite."

Kuroba sat down with a hard thump on the teacher's seat, face not giving anything away but other, more general body language telling the detective all he needed to know. For some reason, something that had been said had been important, somehow. He didn't know what precisely, but –

A hand brushed through untameable dark hair on an instinct fed by frustration. A harsh breath was sucked in and then the magician was up again, pacing this time, moving, always moving, never staying in one place, one moment arms crossed and the next they were on his head, almost tearing his hair out, the next still they were shoved in pockets before being ripped out again. Hakuba stared, little short of amazed at the display, but did his best not to let it show.

"Kuroba . . . _talk_ to me. If that means something to you, then this is a _crime_. We can go to the police-"

"No!"

The pacing stopped and blue-violet eyes stared him feverishly back at him.

"Kuroba, I somehow doubt that whatever happened is more than the police are capable of coping with. I'm sure that Aoko-kun's father for one would be more than willing to assist."

"And I said no!" His face had been growing increasingly paler and his hands clenched. "This is _my_ problem!"

Kuroba cut off with a sharp intake of breath and a general feeling of _too much said_. Hakuba narrowed his eyes at the magician.

"You may have temporarily forgotten this rather important fact, but the world doesn't revolve around you. This is Aoko we're talking about, and Aoko has no enemies that we know of. Apart from the Kaitou Kid fans, her father has no enemies – hasn't had the time to in the last couple of years since Kid came back. So far as we know, there's no apparent reason why anyone would want her. It is not _your_ problem and your problem _alone_! Even if you do have some connection to the case _in any way_, there is no way that you could possibly deal with all of it on your own. That," the British detective said derisively, "would be a fool's plan and end up getting you and possibly Aoko-kun as well killed."

"But –"

"I'm not accepting any buts, Kuroba. I meant what I said earlier. I am _not_ about to let you walk out of that door if it means letting you get killed!" He paused and sighed. "If it's at all about Kid," he added coldly while crossing his arms, "I don't care."

"Wh- _what_?!"

"I've known from almost the very beginning, Kuroba. I merely lack proof. If what is happening now has any correlation to who you are, then I won't act on it. What is going on now is more important than squabbles and rivalries. Let me help."

Kuroba was shaking his head again.

"No –"

"I won't tell anyone else."

"Even after? If what you've been implying is true, then everyone knows –"

"Stop being an idiot, Kuroba. I'm helping you. Even Kid. If we get through this thing, then we shall think about consequences then. For now we simply act on what we _do_ know – without making reckless fools of ourselves, might I add."

Kuroba took a step or two back, then deflated. For a few moments they stood there like that, detective and thief, one standing upright against a tide of unwanted emotions, not wanting to think too hard on what he was doing, the other slumped against the wall, hand running through messy hair and trying frantically to figure the whole thing out.

Shadows started to lengthen in the classroom, bringing one Hakuba Saguru's time sense into check. He checked his watch and was startled to see that so much – and so little – time had passed.

"It's getting late," he said to the room as a whole. "If we want to do anything, it will have to be soon. The sun is going down, and –"

He was cut off by the string of inventive curses that were let loose from his classmate's mouth. He raised an eyebrow. More than a few, he was sure, had been taken straight from Nakamori-keibu's post-heist rants. After a couple of minutes, the stream of invectives halted, magician's hands taking out a phone, one that he was sure that he had seen at one particular heist if he wasn't mistaken. Fingers hovered over the number keys, hesitated. One last, low curse. Kuroba looked back up at him with serious eyes, quite unlike the usual mischievousness of either Kaito or the Kaitou.

"Hakuba-kun. What you just said. Did you _mean_ it?"

"I don't quite understand you."

"About – about the Kid. Did you _mean_ it? Because I can only make this call if you did. Take it or leave it. It's just like you said – it's not just about me. If you go with me, other people _will_ be implicated."

Hakuba, detective for most of his life, swallowed. He knew what the thief was trying to say; either he helped Kaito help Aoko, or he turned tail now and either went to Nakamori or ignored everything that he had just said, including his own promises.

The decision was simple.

Except that with a few simple words, Kuroba had turned it into a do-or-die situation. Do and never go back, never see the world as black-and-white again. Don't and lose what trust and – not that he would ever have willingly admitted to either – friendship even, that they had.

The choice was simple.

"I meant what I said before," he said almost flatly. "I'm not about to let you do anything more stupid than you've already done. If. . ." He paused for point four seconds. "If that means going beyond the law in certain small ways, then so be it."

After all, hadn't Sherlock Holmes himself done the same with Watson? Maybe he wouldn't have with Arsene Lupin, but the matter was moot. Sherlock Holmes hadn't ever been classmates, rivals or anything more with the French thief.

It was almost worth it to see the more normal, terrifying expression of Kid's smirk light up Kuroba Kaito's face as he started to key in numbers that he couldn't see. The phone rang, and was put up to the thief's ear in time for another, strangely familiar voice to come out of it. He was just close enough that he could hear.

"Give me a good reason to think that this is urgent. Quick and to the point. If you don't, I'm hanging up –"

"Now, now – you're in a bad mood, aren't you? Didn't even say 'moshi-moshi'. One might think you were a Kitsune."

A snort mirrored Hakuba's own thoughts, but what was said next left him confused.

"We both know better than that, and what I truly am, besides." _What? Why would someone refer to themself as a 'what'? Especially like that?_ "And as for my bad mood – I have my reasons."

"I wish I could sympathize, but – look. Is she with you?"

". . . Yes. She knows about you, thanks to your performance the other day at the agency. Why?"

"Good. I need you over here. It'd be better if she could come as well. It might be for a few days."

"What's happened?"

Straight, to the point. A voice like Kuroba's yet different. One that he'd heard before somewhere. . .

"Aoko," Kaito was saying. "They've got Aoko."

There were two sharp hisses of breath, one rather muffled and female, if he judged correctly.

A tense silence filled the air for a few heartbeats.

"We're coming over. Get home." A slight pause. "Is it all right if I tell the other?"

A brief hesitation from Kaito.

"Do it. Tell him to come here, we'll take things from there."

"Good. Anywhere specific yet?"

A shake of the thief's head, despite it being invisible to the person on the other line.

"Invitation only, for now."

"Got you," that familiar voice replied with a dark chuckle before ending the call. The white cell phone disappeared back into Kuroba's uniform, and minutes later the classroom was far behind them, an unreadable look on the magician-thief's face.

"Would you mind telling me what that was all about?" Hakuba asked mildly as they headed over to the school's coat and shoe racks. "Or even who it was you were talking to?"

At first the magician showed apparent confusion, but then laughed.

"We made sure it was the other person on the line, not an imposter, said what was going on and where to meet. As you would say, elementary."

The detective sighed, resigned himself to the task of putting on his overcoat – his Sherlockian Inverness of course, though the deerstalker had been banned by law of Kuroba. The last time he had attempted to wear it out of the house, it – or rather, he suspected, Kuroba – had turned his hair different colours every time it was worn.

The walk through town was unreal. Everyone else was going about their life as usual, as if nothing was different or wrong.

Kuroba was supposed to object and deny all, any and all relation to the Kaitou Kid. Yet – he wasn't. He had as much as admitted. To he, Hakuba Saguru, detective.

Kid was a thief, a criminal. But he, a detective, sworn to catch said phantom thief before anyone else, wasn't even doing a single thing against him. Was. . . helping him. Aiding and abetting felonies simply by doing nothing while he walked along side the thief.

Kuroba Kaito was acting normal, or at least as normal as was possible for him to be. Yet at the same time Hakuba was catching him doing things, acting and reacting, in ways that just didn't fit with his classmate. They fitted with the Kaitou Kid.

It made him want to go running and screaming for the police while the men in white suits got his world back in order. It made his head ache.

He had always thought of them as two people, even though from nearly the very beginning he had known they were one and the same. The problem was that when it came down to it, they were one person.

And, not that he would ever admit to anything of the sort, but _knowing_ it and _seeing_ it was a little more than slightly unbalancing.

Round the corner and down the street. He was familiar with the area, even with the house, due to a number of fruitless stakeouts both before and after heists, and he had even been inside a couple of times, even if he had never been able to go past the living room.

This time, though, was different. Kuroba let him in, let his startled mother (and Hakuba didn't know whether or not he should be outraged that she supported him in his crimes or glad that he had someone to look out for him who he could trust, goodness knows he wasn't too surprised) know that 'Tantei-san' was welcome, yes, he did know, no, he wasn't being arrested, and they were going upstairs. Would you please bring cookies?

Hakuba pinched his nose, biting off the urge to scream. Fumiyo Kuroba shot him a sympathetic look as he passed her, making him remember things that he had read and researched on first finding out about the Kid.

Up the stairs they went, going straight into a room that seemed to be a games and entertainment suite, except for the fact that it had a camping table in the middle of the room instead of a television, and the camping table had what seemed unsettlingly like blueprints. With handwriting on them.

He gave Kuroba a mild look.

"Planning for your next heist already, were you?"

The thief had the gall to look embarrassed.

"Yeah, well. A lot of what I _do_ is planning. 'Sides, I wasn't exactly expecting company, was I?"

The world was going mad. Here he was, looking at heist plans – okay, they were being put away in favour of several notebooks, but _still_ – and not doing a thing about it.

Looking about the room rather than think on this for too long, he noticed two things straight away. The first was that if one hid the heist plans and put the camping table – he was sorely tempted to ask _why_ a camping table, but decided not to for the sake of his morals – away, then the room would look absolutely normal. He strongly suspected that Aoko had been in here a great many times, not even knowing what else had gone on in the place. The second was a portrait of a familiar man. The man who had turned up in his research the previous year, who he now suspected of being the first Kaitou Kid. Strangely enough, there was nothing around or underneath it that would suggest a shrine of any sort to the dead. He noticed the younger Kuroba watching him out of the corner of his eye and opened his mouth to form a question.

He didn't, however, get to ask it. He was cut off by Kuroba attempting a look of mystery which, when on the face of the person whose alter-ego was the Kaitou Kid, was a truly terrifying thing. He seemed to know exactly what Hakuba was about to say, though, having caught the detective in the act of eyeing the portrait.

"Aa." A beat, then two. "Sore wa. . . himitsu, desu."

--

Shinichi snapped his cell phone shut and cursed, making Ran's eyes widen. Then he turned to her.

"Your dad. Where is he?"

"Ah, I think he's out. A case – he still has some of his old reputation, you know?"

Shinichi did know. Mouri Kogoro still had the reputation of 'Sleeping Kogoro' from when Shinichi had been Conan, and the returned meitantei's need for a low profile had kept some customers still returning to Ran's father. _At least_, he thought with a mixture of relief and puzzlement, _the old man's not as dumb as he used to be; at least, that's what it seems like_. More and more of the cases being handed to the man were actually being solved rather than being left to mould or come to the wrong conclusions. Well, at least if ojisan was out with other people, it made his life easier for a short while.

Possibly.

"You heard me before. We're going over to the suicidal idiot's for a few days. We can stop over and pick some of your stuff up, but don't leave a note. You can call him later. After you're done there we're going to get some of my stuff."

_Some of which may prove useful, thanks to Agasa-hakase, and some of which makes me hope that Kuroba doesn't have an aversion to making excuses to his mom for the little red packages I'm going to need in his fridge_.

The opportunity to stay still for long enough to call Hattori came while he was waiting for Ran to pack some things into a bag that could be easily carried and didn't have to be packed into a car boot. The moment he was through the door, in the stairwell and away from the dying sunlight, his phone was out again and Hattori's number was punched via speed dial.

Briefly, he wondered what to say to the western detective. It was obvious that the direct approach of telling the truth straight out wouldn't work, as they had little enough time as it was. Thus, he decided as the Osakan's voice started to come through, he would tell part now – that they were in danger, that Hattori needed to meet him in Ekoda with Kazuha – and leave the rest to later, where he could see and understand things with his own eyes. Things such as a detective voluntarily working with the Kaitou Kid. Things such as why Nakamori Aoko being kidnapped were far worse than if someone like even Ran was taken, kami forbid.

Which was probably why Kaito was calling in the cavalry. Because Nakamori Aoko was one of Kuroba Kaito's few weak points, apart from his mother, his helper and, strangely enough, Hakuba Saguru. If someone struck out at her, then there was the possibility that the thief would act without thinking. It also covered other bases. He had been told that the Organisation thought that Kaito was his father, and the Kuroba and Nakamori families had always been friendly. If Kuroba Touichi really had been alive still, then this sort of thing might even have been enough to bring him out of hiding, while at the same time rendering the son distraught and scared.

Both of which scenarios would have meant one main thing – the Kaitou Kid would be busy. Too busy to have time for asking for help, or even just being there. It had only been a few days, but what he had with the thief, although unlikely, reminded him of what it had been like to have Hattori when he was Conan. Someone else his age who _knew_, could be there even though they didn't understand. Someone who thought like he did. An, just as importantly this time, lived nearby.

In short, they would have slowly but surely started to chip away at Shinichi's support system, which, although he would have looked at himself strangely for even implying such a thing and started to ask for the guys in white coats only a few weeks ago, the second person in that was one Kuroba Kaito, and they had probably only _not_ gone for Ran directly because she was so close to him. If someone tried to hurt or take Ran away from him he didn't know what he'd do. He knew that he had made a lot of progress at holding back, but he wasn't sure whether he'd _want_ to if it was Ran on the line, or one of his other precious people.

That idea, both that _they_ would think of his friends as tools and that they would hurt them like that, and that there was the possibility of what he might be able to do if they did, scared him and made him angry at the same time.

He _wouldn't_ let a thing like that happen.

--

AN: . . . Otherwise known as Detective Koshein gathering number three! *sweatdrops abound* okay, joking. First to say that the quote Kaito used at Hakuba at the end of his piece came from Slayers, which I've never seen/watched/read/whatever, but the quote is brilliant. Basically means ''That. . . is a secret.'' The case where Hakuba recognized Kaito's phone from is Icka's fic 'Cellphones and Curry', and Kogoro's increase in intellect comes from a fic called 'No Fool' which is in my faves. Not completely, but a lot. Akako was fun to write, and there'll be more of her.

FYI, a group of crows is called a murder. Bird imagery thanks due to RelTruth. There should be only two or at most three more chapters. I hope you enjoyed this one.


	10. Communication and Complicity

The Vampire Detective

Chapter Ten – Communication and Complicity

Disclaimer - I TOTALLY own the nervous passengers. Anything else? Uh... *slinks away*

_No man is an island, entire unto himself._

---

The Japanese countryside in its various shades of green and blue passed them by, peacefully ignoring any and all disruption they might make, in blissful ignorance of the tense atmosphere that filled one carriage in particular of the Shinkansen fast train from Kyoto to Tokyo that morning.

The tension wasn't born of danger, anger or grief. Perhaps that was how it was possible for most to be unaware except for an impatience to get to where they were going. A couple or so looked like business types had computers or notepads out. More were reading. One, a girl of maybe seventeen, was fast asleep and oblivious to the palpable aura of worry that emanated from the boy next to her, whose shoulder she was resting on.

The boy didn't mind this in the slightest, apart from the soreness that came as a result. It meant, at the very least that one of the two was relaxed enough to rest and regain energy lost in a frenzy of packing and arguments with parents.

In fact, the noises and motions of the train were lulling enough that he too would have slept and denied it later if they had been there under any other circumstances. As it was, he couldn't.

Worry tore at him. For himself, for his friends, for his family, for anyone who might end up being affected. For the girl resting against him.

Wearing a serious look that would disappear the moment the girl woke up, Hattori Heiji's white Sax cap had long since been turned to the front.

--

Toyama Kazuha had been drifting slowly for a while, half aware and probably half dreaming as well, and had it was likely that she'd heard the tail end of his phone call to Kudo. As a result, she was woken right up by the much louder sounds and screeches of the train pulling into the Tokyo station. Yawning, she stretched, almost hitting Heiji in the face with one of her elbows. The boy grouched, but merely steadied the cap on his head and picked up his bag with clothes and bokken with only a token muttering of stupid idiots.

For herself, Kazuha glared at him, but the look was cut short by the sight of a familiar hat which was being worn the right way round for a change. He turned back to her with a frown as the train fully stopped.

"You coming, or are ya going to just stand there staring into space all day?"

"I – I wasn't - ! I was just wondering how Kudo-kun is going to be able to find us on the platform, was all. I mean, he might be all powerful and all, but in these crowds- !"

She was cut off as they stepped off the train and into a sea of bodies and noise. Heiji shrugged.

"Dunno," he started to say, then froze.

"What is it?"

"I thought - I was sure I just saw Kudo. Over that way. But he ain't there any more. . ."

"Are you sure it was him?"

"Yeah, I'm sure! What d'you think I'd do? Mistake him for some other guy with – ack!"

Heiji tensed and whirled, wishing that is bokken wasn't packed so tightly away. The hand that had clamped itself lightly on his shoulder, resulting in the alarms ringing in his head with accompanying mantra of _danger!_ flowed away like water in his grasp. His body was going into a reflexive defensive stance when he saw who it was. Rather than relax, he scowled and hit the other hard in the shoulder.

"Ow!"

"You deserved it, you idiot. Just be grateful it ain't gonna bruise."

Kudo Shinichi paused, blinked and snickered.

"Follow me."

"Where to? You gonna tell us who your new friend is?"

Shinichi shook his head, irritating both Osakans by not being bothered in the slightest by the jostling crowds as will as his refusal to tell them anything. The eastern detective had been less than forthcoming in his call to Heiji the night before, either. Which was strange, because usually Kudo was willing enough to share info.

The journey from there on went smoothly enough. Small talk was shared over various innocent topics, despite Heiji and Kazuha's probing into what was really going on and the tense atmosphere that permeated everything even with all three attempting to keep the tone of conversation light.

"Oi, Kudo."

The other detective, after their second and last bus journey and the thinning out of the crowds as they went further out into the suburbs and away from the city centres, had started to become more and more like his normal self – that is, pensive to the point of looking depressed, with his hands buried deeply in his pockets.

"Hn?"

The vampire detective sounded preoccupied with something, which Heiji figured to be their direction when his friend looked with a harassed air at a signpost before simply standing still for a moment or two. Whatever it was he'd done, they were moving again in seconds.

"You ever gonna tell us where it is you're taking us? Or who yer friend is? _Before_ we get there?"

"Eh. . . nope."

"What do you _mean_ 'no'?" Kazuha butted in.

"We've got to have _some_ idea of who they are, Kudo."

For a moment they had no reply, but then the un-chibified detective ran a hand through his hair, a sure sign of stress that he had been able to keep mostly under control. At long last he sighed, making Heiji smirk.

"Fine. But I'm only telling you this."

"What?"

"You know that call the other day when I told you about that heist? I didn't tell you everything."

_Huh? But that doesn't explain anything! At all. Naka. Zilch. It ain't as if Kudo would've met someone there that made him react like this to something. After all, it's hardly like he'd suddenly be friendly with that blowhard Nakamori or that smug bastard Hakuba_.

No, the only reason Kudo would have made him bring Kazuha along with him like this would be because something had happened involving that damn organization of his. Something that'd mean Kazuha would be in more danger staying at home and not knowing.

The thought had him frowning and again tugging at his hat – he didn't like it when dangerous things happened around Kazuha.

The buzz of a doorbell shook him out of his thoughts, and he was surprised to find himself still in a rather nondescript-looking street, nothing special looking at all. Kudo was a few yards ahead of them, having pushed the bell of a house that Heiji would have walked straight past. He shrugged and moved to catch up.

As they waited for the door to open, he was treated to a display of changing emotions on the other detective's face, ranging from amusement to annoyance to a strange sort of smirk that he saw more often on pranksters than on detectives. Weirdly enough, it reminded him of something else, as well, but he couldn't put his finger on it. _Never mind. Probably doesn't matter anyway_.

It was about then that the door finally opened, to reveal the last person he had ever wanted to see, smug expression and all. Heiji crossed his arms, scowl evident.

"You coulda told me it was _him_."

The English detective only smiled slightly, as if he was in on a joke that he, Hattori Heiji, the great detective of the west, simply didn't have the brains or patience to figure out.

"Now then, Mr Hot-blooded Detective-kun. No need to be that way. I am quite simply helping out a friend in need. Just as you are doing, I suspect," he added with a twitch of one eyebrow.

'Helping a friend?' Would that mean that he was helping Kudo, or that they were both helping someone else? Hopefully he'd find out sooner rather than later. He didn't like being left in the dark.

"Oi, Kudo."

The vampire's rather amused outlook on things was really starting to irritate him.

"Yeah?"

"I know you and whatever army needed help, but did it have ta be that guy?"

A short glare in the direction of that guy only made the target smirk slightly and lean casually against the doorframe. Kudo on the other hand looked about ready to start laughing.

"Yes, Hattori, it did have to be him." Aside to Hakuba, whose smirk was slightly wider than before, he added something else. "They are who they say they are, by the way. And if it's about that other thing, you should remember what I told you before. You might as well let them in – they've come this far."

Hakuba sighed, taking a glance at his watch.

"You simply live to enjoy spoiling my fun, don't you, Kudo-kun? Never mind – we'd best be heading in anyway. It's about time."

Kudo nodded absently as they filed in, the blond holding the door open and Heiji letting himself in last. Hakuba sent an odd-looking sour look the vampire's way before allowing himself to relax. Shoulders dropped and back slouched, the detective really didn't look much like himself anymore, even though Heiji had only been around him once or twice. Add to that the fact that Kudo was shooting amused glances between him and the maybe-Hakuba, and things were getting weird.

They only got weirder when a couple of thumps could be heard from the upstairs section of the house, closely followed by the thunder of footsteps coming down the stairs in a tightly controlled rage.

The rage of what appeared to be the exact clone of one Hakuba Saguru.

The one Heiji and the others had followed in had had his face run through a series of expressions from vaguely worried to immense enjoyment before settling on an increasingly familiar smirk as a suspicion began to form in the back of the detective of the west's mind. The two were even dressed alike, except for outer wear, and the copy – or was that the original? – was now pointing irately at the other.

"_You_." The British detective for once had something more than cool disdain or restrained, calm amusement. "I _swear_, Kuroba, if you ever do anything like that again, I _will_ be dragging you for a meeting with a certain someone across the road."

"Me? But I didn't do anything."

Now even the voice was different, and of all things and people, the Hakuba-that-wasn't sounded like _Kudo_, and finally Heiji went slackjawed as he began to understand.

"You? Not do anything? You have the guts to say that while wearing _my_ jacket and _my_ watch?" At the number of snickers and giggles that erupted around the room, the detective glared at collective allies as a whole before continuing on his tirade at the slowly un-disguising boy. "How exactly you managed to obtain exact replicas of what I happened to be wearing, I do not and most likely do not _wish_ to know. However, if you try to do anything like that ever again without my express _permission_, I think that I will more than probably do something that we would _both_ regret."

And with that, the irate Hakuba Saguru strode deliberately over to Kuroba, took both watch and jacket, and headed over to the kitchen, where he could be heard politely asking a homely woman who looked like Kuroba's mother for a cup of tea.

Struggling not to start laughing again – and promptly failing every so often – Shinichi introduced his new friend.

"Hattori, this . . . I don't think you've met before. This is Kuroba Kaito- "

"The Kaitou Kid, right?"

Heiji found himself grinning at the thief who somehow seemed able to look like a twin of Kudo, unable to be at odds for long at someone who was able to get Hakuba's hackles raised and not get worked up himself. Slowly but surely, a matching grin edged its way onto the Kid's face

"Took you long enough, Tantei-han." The thief smiled enigmatically at a confused Kazuha and gestured towards the kitchen. "The rest of the girls are in there, so you can tell Hakuba that once he's finished moaning, he can come up and show the rest of us what he's been up to on the computer."

She looked from Kuroba to him and over to Kudo and back again in a lost sort of motion, but before she could cay anything, Heiji planted a hand firmly on her shoulder.

"Look, Kazuha. This is gonna be hard, but you gotta trust us. Kudo and I know what we're doing, an' that guy's vouched for. It's all gonna be fine, so go talk girl things with 'Neechan and stop bein' an idiot."

A bit of the flame came back to her eyes at the familiar taunt, but she simply huffed and stalked off into the kitchen from which female voices could be heard in conversation, muttering something about going somewhere that she _would_ get answers.

Heiji simply shrugged and smirked, following the twins up the stairs. _Well, they are_, he thought to himself. _Only differences are that – apart from the whole vampire thing Kudo's got going – one's a know-it-all who likes to wear suits, and the other's a non-conforming rebel in all senses of the word_.

He only shook his head at his thoughts in slight bemusement – who would have thought that detectives such as himself, Kudo and, surprise of all surprises _Hakuba_ of all people, would be working with the International Criminal Kaitou Kid, after all? – but above all he was wondering what kind of kami-forsaken mess he'd invited himself in for, and that he wouldn't have willingly missed out on the thrill ride for anything.

---

Hours later – hours spent going over blueprints and schematics again and again, spent bickering and arguing over the best plan of action if they were driven one way or another, hours spent disagreeing with Kaito simply because he was a thief and thought like one, disagreeing with Hattori because, like Hakuba said, he was _too_ hot-blooded, disagreeing with Hakuba because he wasn't hot-headed _enough_ – their legs carried them down the stairs and back to the others. As they gathered in the dining room, the largest room to fit so many people and their various teas, coffees and, in Shinichi's case, carefully disguised blood, the teenaged detective of the east found himself reflecting on how strange and good if not easy it was to work with so many people instead of not being able to trust anyone.

Something that the women-folk were discussing, however, distracted him.

"Well, there's Sonoko – Makoto-san's out of the country, so we don't have to worry about him – and there's Keiko – you told me about her, she's Aoko's friend, and then there's the Shonen Tantei – they're Conan's friends who helped him solve mysteries – and that would have to mean their parents as well, since they're only first-graders, after all. Ah- " Ran stuck a finger to her mouth in thought. "'Course, that's not counting 'Tousan and 'Kaasan and anyone they'd need – yes, Shinichi?"

By that point, Shinichi had been watching her wide-eyed for a while, and with every few moments someone else had noticed until everyone was staring and paying the utmost attention to what Mouri Ran had been saying to Toyama Kazuha and Kuroba Fumiyo. He swallowed, unsure whether or not he even _wanted_ to know the answer to his question.

"Eh, Ran? Is there something we need to know?"

Ran smiled thinly and crossed her arms. "Yes, I rather think there is, you idiot."

Kazuha nodded emphatically, pointedly not looking at Hattori since a short but scathing row that had occurred over his apparent inability to trust her once she had found everything out from other sources. It hadn't been a pretty sight, and Shinichi wasn't sure whether her nod was simply because she thought that the boys were idiots or if she actually agreed with Ran, or even likelier, both.

"Look," Ran continued, "You're all concentrating on what you'll have to do once you've found her. We were talking about _they'll_ do in the meantime. It's hardly as though they're going to just sit there twiddling their thumbs waiting to be found, is it?" For the most part, blank and slightly embarrassed faces stared and blinked back at her. Shinichi instead called himself a fool for not thinking of that properly himself and then found himself with a slight shiver. Ran should never have had to talk about _them_ so knowingly, use the word _they_ the way they, the detectives and thief who were in the know, used it. It just wasn't right – or fair. "We figured that if they went after Aoko-san just because she was connected to Kid, they might go after other people that we're close to. People," she put bluntly, "usually don't work so well if they have to worry about someone they love, wondering if they're even still alive." The last was aimed at Shinichi through the way she said it even if she wasn't looking at him, and he winced, making Hakuba stare at him for a couple of seconds.

"We were making up a list of people we're all real close to," Kazuha put in. "Friends and family, you know. The kinda people who'd have a real hard time putting up a fight, too."

For a few minutes there was a thoughtful and tense silence as the gravity of the situation weighed down on them. This was the first time the Organisation had taken action first, after all, and who knew what they might do next.

Kaito, likely unable to survive in silence and having gone without the opportunity to gain an audience, was the first to speak up.

"We're not going to be able to fit all of those people in here. And no matter what anyone says, Nakamori-keibu stays as far out of it as it's possible to keep him."

"We could get everyone to fit into your place, Kudo-kun – that big house of yours is massive."

Shinichi shook his head.

"There are only a few spare rooms and the others aren't big enough for more than a few people to bunk out on a full length futon. Maybe the Shonen Tantei could fit in the study all together, but most of the rest of the house is- "

"Packed full of junk and mystery novels everywhere you look," Ran finished not too unkindly. Shinichi didn't deny it, only smiled and ducked his head slightly to hide the blush.

"Not the most appropriate situation for a base of operations, then."

Everyone turned to stare at Hakuba, who just spoken. His golden eyes narrowed and he stared right back at them, but that did was make a couple of the others smile – or rather, smirk.

"_No_. Absolutely not."

"But it's _perfect_, Hakuba," Kaito said, grinning from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat that'd just caught the cream.

"Your father's company does use electronics in detection, doesn't it?"

Kuroba Fumiyo was half frowning and half smiling.

"An' if you live local," Hattori contributed with a grin that almost rivalled Kaito's, "We'd be able to see Nakamori-han every so often that much easier, right? Not to mention I've heard it ain't as much a house as a mansion."

Attempting to keep a straight face, Shinichi finished the last of his red drink and turned back toward Ran.

"How many people did you say would need to be accounted for?"

"I didn't. But. . . a lot. An _awful_ lot."

Hakuba glared at them all, but Shinichi only shrugged.

"You've got to admit, it is a good plan."

The glare lasted a few moments longer and then the blond detective long, controlled breath of a sigh.

"Have it your way then. You will have to contact everyone and come up with some reason for them to be there without giving the game away to hundreds of people, though." He stood and made to leave, assumedly to use his cell phone while not in the presence of the others. At the door he turned briefly and gave them one final word of advice before heading upstairs again. "You do, of course, realise that you will have to find an alternative place for anyone who has an allergy to birds, don't you?"

Various snickers met the statement as the speaker disappeared. Topics of discussion wandered from who they were going to ask to what would be useful to take. It was around this time when Kaito suddenly stopped saying something and started to smile, which turned into one of his trademark Kid smirks. That and the way he was now laughing made the hairs on the backs of the detectives' necks stand up on end. Finally, someone asked what the joke was and the thief enlightened them.

"I just realised. If we're basically moving operations over to Hakuba's, then I'm going to have to take some of dad's old stuff. After all, if they don't know that the Kid's _me_, there's no use letting go of the advantage if we don't have to. Except what _that_ means is Hakuba's going to have to work next to the Kid – who he's only been trying to catch for the last few years!"

His mother crossed her arms across her chest while raising a brow, doing a fair interpretation of the stern mother she was.

"Be nice."

---

Ran sighed. It was already well past midnight, and she had long since resigned herself to the fact that sleep would be long in the taking this night.

Desperate for something to do, anything really, in order to keep her from brooding over the immediate future, she headed down to the kitchen from the guest room that she and Kazuha had been taking up. The boys had been dumped half in Kaito's room and half in the now infernally messy entertainment suite.

_That_ pair-up brought a smile to her face. After all, it was hardly as though Shinichi could share a futon in the same room as anyone else who didn't know his secret – he slept, quite literally, like the dead. A thing that had more than startled her the first time she had found out. Consequentially, her friend (and perhaps more, if they would stop deducting and start saying) had bunked down in the shadier part of the thief's room, as the entertainment suite's window was a lot harder to black-out for mornings, and to do so at all would bring unwanted questions.

It all ended up with Hattori-kun and Hakuba-kun, two people deemed almost complete opposites, having to share a room. More than once, one of the others had needed to go in to stop an escalating argument.

Her feet lead her to the fridge, hands took out a carton of milk, poured some into a glass that had been left on the drainer. Putting the carton back, she tried and failed not to see the packs which had been expertly disguised as some sort of red grape juice, complete with cartons and logos.

She closed the fridge door and sighed again. It was getting easier. It _was_.

For her, anyway. She finished her milk and pretended that she hadn't seen the oh-so-familiar silhouette outside. Just standing there, in the cold.

Heading back up and promptly wincing at a creaky floorboard, a thought crossed her mind.

_At least_ he _doesn't have to put up with things like being afraid you'll wake everyone up with the creak in the floorboards when you finally_ do _go to sleep at last. Even though he'd never admit it, there really are a lot of things he should be thankful for_. . .

A yawn escaped her, and when she reached her futon, this time, sleep welcomed her.

---

"Oi, Hakuba."

The blond detective didn't answer or respond in any way. Which in a way was only to be expected.

"Oi. Lemme take that."

He punctuated his statement with a hand on the other boy's shoulder to make sure that he was paying attention this time and was rewarded when tired amber eyes met his.

"I was under the impression that before we set out from Kuroba's, you took it upon yourself to carry the heaviest of the equipment. I assure you Kudo-kun, that I will be able to survive at least a little longer."

He snorted.

"Yeah, and then I'll be having to carry _you_ into your own home – hardly. Give. I swapped with Hattori ten minutes ago while you were too busy looking at the ground."

All right, so the story of him switching with Hattori was a lie; anyone could see just by looking. That didn't mean that he couldn't take any more – almost the opposite, in fact. He was strong enough that he could accomplish what he set out to do.

Finally, Hakuba stopped and put down his load, looking fairly sceptical when the recently returned detective of the east took up his new burden as though he hadn't been carrying something a lot heavier previously. In true fact, even that impression had required work on the vampire's part to make things seem heavier than they were.

Dropping back a little – in part to keep up the pretence and also to check up on how well the rest of their private caravan was doing, he saw Hattori and Kuroba in deep discussion with Ran. Out of the blue, they started to laugh about something he didn't catch due to the light breeze being strong enough to steal their words away from him. He was, however, treated to the sight of Hattori reluctantly handing something over to the thief and Ran shaking her head in a way that he recognized, just enjoying watching them.

For a moment, everything was all right, except for what it was they were all there for in the first place, and he almost smiled.

Then a feeling of familiar unease hit him and he froze in place in the middle of the path. Looking around helped him not at all and neither did closing his eyes and concentrating on the sounds around him. Everything was just the way he had left it only minutes ago, except. . .

"Yo, Kudo. What's got you bugged?"

He sighed and fell back into step with the Osakan.

"I don't know. I feel like someone's watching me – us. I just don't know where from. The others seem fine."

Hattori snorted. "You haven't seen Kuroba for a while, then," he said with unexpected seriousness. "Maybe it's just 'cause detectives are practically in custody of his dad's old stuff, but the guy's been set like there's a bomb under his top hat ever since we left."

He nodded once, his blue eyes narrowed slightly in concentration and distraction.

"I did notice."

---

AN: For one thing, this is just a fraction of the original chapter. I'm still writing the rest. I just thought that you'd want this bit before you started to think that I'd stagnated the story in the realms of Star Wars and other fanfics. No, total word count for the chapter in full so far is approx. 9225 words. 0_0 .

I've been looking forward to some of these bits I've been writing for SO long.


	11. Connections and Complacency

The Vampire Detective

Chapter Eleven – Connections and Complacency

Disclaimer – I own miscellaneous police officers who mill about occasionally. Not even the coffee machine.

_Therefore, whoever wishes for peace, let him prepare for war. – De Re Militari._

-

Kaito watched with nervous anxiety as the three detectives put down their loads. All in all, they had decided on less than half of the contents of the secret room which wasn't as much of a secret now as it had been a relatively short while ago. He still wasn't sure what his mother thought about that, but all she had said when she had walked in on them discussing the matter back home had been that they were, under no circumstances, taking the car.

Everything was divided up into two different sections – makeup and costumes in one, including various Kid suits, and mechanisms and gadgets in the other, including the gizmos he often used in heists.

Few things had been carried on his person. One, two changes of clothes, one of which was work clothes. Another was his card gun. Several flash and smoke bombs were also hidden on his person, just in case.

The room was an out of the way storage space that wasn't in use any more, and likely wouldn't be disturbed by anyone who wasn't in the know.

A fan of cards flushed out from his sleeves – royal flush, four kings, aces and jokers. Ten different patterns; flowers and gems.

Occasionally the others turned to him for direction as to where he wanted things to go. The only one who wasn't taking part was Hakuba himself, who had excused himself from their company almost the second after showing them the room that he was lending to them for as long as the operation necessitated.

He hadn't been heard from since then, but Kaito would eat his hat if it didn't have something to do with either electronics and computers or the hawk, Watson. The _female_ hawk, Watson.

His doves had had to stay at home. He didn't have to like it, but there was no other way around it. They would draw too much attention that would be too hard to get rid of or distract otherwise.

With a sharp hiss of breath, the cards disappeared only to have various items of a similar size replace them and start flying through the air, the magician's feet starting to pound holes in the carpet and still managing not to drop anything, making it seem almost as thought they sometimes didn't even touch his hands before flying back into the air.

Kudo Shinichi, former nemesis, new friend and (somehow) vampire, was probably the only one who could see through the mask he put up for the others. Maybe it was a vampire thing. Kaito preferred to believe that it was due to the similar masks and experiences that the detective himself had been through.

The sense of being watched hadn't diminished after reaching Hakuba's, instead increasing, and not giving his nerves a rest, either.

For some reason, it made him think of brooms, but any time he tried to think of someone related to brooms, a memory of Aoko and her mop would appear in his head. Aoko chasing him with a mop. The fire in her eyes.

The way he hadn't let her in. The way she wasn't there. With him.

Seeing that everything was just about in place and that they didn't need him there any more, he left, no particular destination in mind, only to get away from the many people who didn't know or didn't understand. From everything that reminded him of her.

---

Hakuba Saguru had excused himself more out of personal confusion than a true need for solitude – not that he felt that it would have gotten him anywhere if that had been what he had wanted.

So instead of doing something useless and futile, he was attempting something both useful and quite possibly just as improbably possible as the previous – sitting in his home's security centre, trying and promptly failing to find the source of Kuroba's, not to mention Hattori and the anomaly Kudo's, worry and tension. The sense of someone watching them wasn't driving him to distraction the same as it was the others, but it was there, and enough to make him curious.

The cameras had been removed from the newly secret room the previous evening in preparation, but there were some in the surrounding hallways, the rooms to all sides as well as above. There was even a special untraceable feed that watched the roof – he knew how the Kid liked rooftops, and if they were going to be working together then he couldn't afford to have anyone else know what went on behind that monocle of his. Hakuba tech white noise generators had been spread liberally about the place, too. Only the transmissions they wanted would be able to go in or out, guaranteeing almost any and all conversations to be as secure as could be, which was a very valuable thing in times like these and with friends-slash-allies who were not entirely legal.

Some might have said that he was obsessive, while others would hint that he was cold. The truth, in fact, was somewhere in between, if not both.

He was still having some trouble – _issues_, Kuroba would call it – about being called in so suddenly to decide which mattered more to him, the law or his friends. The very fact that he had friends, or even just friendly rivals, was something that he had mulled over whenever he hadn't been at work on their problems. For most of his life he had been carted around, made to follow either mother or father. His situation as being only half Japanese had made him different, unable to fit in, unable to put himself into a tidy box the way he did most people, though most only ever saw him do it with criminals. Now of course, there were three others who defied boxes.

Each pressed in on him in their own certain, irritating ways. Kuroba was Kuroba. _That_ was something that he had learned a long time ago; not long after he had found out about the Kid and started to suspect him. Yet even then the thief had shoved his way into Saguru's personal life, along with Aoko-kun, who had agreed with her lifelong friend on that small point if not about the personality of lies that said friend had created. No, Kuroba shoved, but it wasn't insensitive. The boy had too many of his own secrets not to know when he wasn't wanted and when to back off when it _really_ meant something.

Hattori, Kudo Shinichi's friend, rubbed against him the entirely wrong way for completely different reasons. Indeed, their personalities were as similar as the sword-styles that they preferred – refined and somewhat detached to loud, brash and hard-hitting. Not that European fencing was not hard-hitting, though. It just required more finesse, something that the Osakan detective severely lacked. He was a passable detective, and might even have been worthy of the title _meitantei_, if he would for once _think_ about a situation before diving headlong into it. As well as the fact that at times he was almost incapable of lying and often put both feet into his mouth before he had even opened it. That inability of his would get him killed one day, though any more nights like the last two and Saguru himself would be on verge of committing the act.

Kudo –

Saguru paused for a whole minute to compose his thoughts on the near-stranger. From what he knew, Kudo Shinichi had been a meitantei for well over a year before his disappearance one day, abruptly vanishing from his previous life. A short search had been conducted, but no-one had come up with anything, leading up to the termination of the alert when several people had been reported to have heard from him. About a year later, he returns – only almost completely different, and with a certain edge to him that most didn't recognize, but definitely knew was there on some level.

On a personal note, he was an unknown quantity and a person whom he had possibly never met before he and his Osakan friend had been let into the Kuroba household as if the detective and thief had known each other for all of their lives. Possibly, because anything other _was_ only that, and in the loosest of senses – if sense came into it. Kudo was strong – Saguru wasn't blind, and even one who had not trained as a detective for most of their life could have figured out that he had been lying on the walk to his home. Kudo could creep up on people, even Kuroba. He was fast, and had almost inhuman reflexes, evidenced by how he had juggled things as they were packing, never dropped a single thing. He never missed anything and overheard things that he should not have been able to overhear.

If Hakuba Saguru had been one to follow hunches and portents the same way that _certain_ detectives were known to, he would have said that he felt a very bad feeling about all of it. He couldn't honestly say that he liked the idea of where any of it was going.

At times, it would seem like he _knew_ exactly what was going on, but those moments would pass, leaving only vague feelings of _don't want to go there_.

In following from this train of thought, his eyes went back to the computer screens behind him. A set of shadows had moved – no, just simply grown darker for a moment or two. There? No, just here. Right outside where he was and to the –

He sighed.

"Good afternoon, Kuroba-kun."

Leaving the shadows that had hidden him on his way there, the idiot grinned. Still dressed in the same jeans-and-T-shirt combination as he had worn for the past couple of days, various things belied the look of abject happiness that was on the thief's face.

"I think my room's about finished," came the expected declamation as Kuroba draped himself over the back of Saguru's chair. "Wanna come look?"

"I rather suspected that it might be when I started to see our friends appearing in the nearby corridors," came the rejoinder, hopefully neutral and without the hint of acid that was in his thoughts at the very idea that his home could be helping _thieves_. "I thank you for the offer, but I am afraid I must decline. You must understand that I have a certain amount of work to be done."

The flash of intense pain flickered from Kuroba's eyes so fast that he doubted that he had even seen it. Yes, Kuroba understood all right. Like the thief he was, he was taking advantage of the conversation to watch the monitors.

"You know," Kuroba said in passing, "I don't think they're on those."

"Who?"

An expansive shrug that made the chair budge slightly and compromised Kuroba's own position, threatening to make him topple.

"Anyone. The cameras are the box. You _like_ boxes. But not everyone's a box, Tantei-san. Hakuba-kun."

Saguru's eyes widened in incredulity.

"We are all in danger. Our time is running out. We need to find out where to look, and you start speaking in _Kid riddles_? We don't _need_ this!"

Kuroba - _or maybe I should say_ Kid – released himself from the back of the chair to lean against the doorframe, for once looking as tired as he must have been feeling. For some reason it struck something within the detective, something that said _this is real, this and this and this are Kuroba Kaito. Not of that luminous stuff is mortal man made. . ._

"I don't _understand_, Hakuba," came the slow and true words. "I could tell you weren't doing it right. I could tell why. But I don't. . . understand. I wish I could . . . _do_ something. But I can't. Not until we find them. Ever since this whole damn thing started, _nothing_ has happened the way it's supposed to. _Nothing_. So that's all I could tell you – that if we're chasing people who don't care for boxes, we can't be predictable any more."

_I doubt there was ever a time when _you_ were predictable, Kuroba_, came the half-formed thought. He half opened his mouth to say something, but recent events stopped his tongue. There were very few ways in which either Kuroba and the Kid were predictable, yet they did exist. Kuroba was an avid Kid fan. The Kid always returned what he stole. Kuroba and the Kid were both magicians, both had masks to show the world. Both wanted to protect everyone they had in arm's reach, which had morphed into the infamous moniker of the Kaitou Kid – No One Gets Hurt. Not the real bad guys, and especially not the police or his favourite detectives.

Now, he knew several truths. The Kaito behind the masks. That Kid would, one day, not return the thing that he stole. That Kid could not protect everyone simply by legend and code alone. And that Kaito had willingly drawn him and the other two detectives – and their friends – into something undeniably dangerous.

One by one, subtle sureties were being torn from Saguru's grasp. All he had left was to try and protect what they had left, or he would not be the only one to be cast adrift.

He stood, powering down all monitors and leaving the search engines on standby until he got back. Picked up his cell phone. Hesitantly, he touched Kuroba briefly on the upper arm before leaving the room.

"If you would come with me? I believe I have some calls to make."

---

Hakuba hadn't been the only – or even first – to think of the mansion's most comfortable large room. As he walked in, Shinichi and Ran were already sitting at a low desk on fluffed up cushions, talking over a piece of paper. Having heard them approach and waited for the appropriate time to speak, the vampire looked up at the others.

"Nice to have you join us again, Hakuba-kun. Kaito. Ran and I were just drawing out a table of who gets to call who. We have a lot of people on this list and not enough time for one person to do everything."

Kaito reached over and took the list to pour over it for a number of minutes.

". . . Good idea. When're we going to get started?"

"As soon as we're all gathered in one place. I thought here would be good – if all goes to plan we'll be talking for some time."

The thief nodded absently, then handed the table back, pointing at one of the names on the list with a finger.

"I call him."

Shinichi looked up in surprise that rapidly dissipated when he saw the look of mischief marred by seriousness. He nodded.

"Fine. But not until the rest of yours are already done. I don't think we'd get you off the phone otherwise. As it is I should think your _dramatics_ should be kept to a bare minimum. Understood?"

Kaito grinned.

"Clear as crystal."

The English detective started to look worried. He shrugged and went back to the lists, all but tuning the rest of the world out.

"Something you wanted to say, Hakuba?"

Shinichi heard the elder boy startle and inwardly cursed – he might be getting to grips with being a vampire, but adjusting back into the world of the normal while he was markedly not would take time. At least he knew that he would have more than enough of _that_.

"Actually," Hakuba said as he hid his surprise, "I was wondering where the hot-headed Osakan had gotten to."

Shinichi paused ever so slightly in his writing to make a face.

"Hattori's off in the dojo, swinging around that bokken of his about. _I'm_ not going to be the one to interrupt him."

Ran sighed – one of her amused, relieved and long-suffering sighs that only seemed to happen around him – and Kaito smirked, knowing intimately Shinichi's weakness when it came to wood. Hakuba, for whom the entire non-verbal exchange had gone right over his head, nodded, a wry look on his face.

"I see. Well, in that case perhaps I could take a look at that," he said, gesturing politely to the paper that Shinichi had let Kaito look at.

"Huh? Sure."

For a number of minutes – though only Hakuba himself would bother to count them exactly – the blond studied the list of names and numbers and connections to their inner circle with a certain amount of interest. Then –

"We're missing some."

"Well, yes. Of course we're missing some. We don't have everyone here yet. . ."

Hakuba rolled his amber eyes. Then he turned a coolly amused look towards Kaito.

"Kuroba, have you any discernable reason you can give me why Koizumi-san is not on this list?"

Shinichi's head snapped up and his eyes narrowed slightly.

"Who is this. . . Koizumi?"

"Koizumi Akako," Hakuba started, shooting a half-strength glare at his classmate, who looked suddenly as if he had just solved a mystery, a wide grin splitting his face. "A girl in our class. Ordinarily I would say that she shouldn't be too likely to get involved in anything like this, however she has made quite a . . . name for herself."

Kaito snorted, a cross between a laugh and a cough. "She's a witch, Hakuba!"

Polite English reserve seemed to hold the other boy back from too much irritation, but not all.

"Simply because Koizumi has red hair does not mean that she is a witch, Kuroba."

Kaito only started laughing properly.

"But you've _seen_ her at _heists_, Hakuba!"

"And the next thing that you will be asking me to believe is that _your_ magic is real and that Kudo-kun here was never actually missing but recently returned from the dead. No, I don't think that I believe you."

Shinichi had started to choke on air, startled by the detective's blind sight.

You don't know how right you are, Hakuba Saguru.

---

That evening, the first of the evacuees started to come seeking refuge of some sort at the Hakuba mansion. Most of them were what would become their main staff throughout the operation, including Jii, Agasa and Ai. Others such as Jodie from the FBI dropped in at times, offering assistance as they could.

By the next afternoon, it seemed like true progress was starting to be made. Dozens of 'guests' had been and were being escorted to the safety of the Hakuba mansion under the watchful eyes of an increasingly snappy Shinichi. Not all of them knew the truth, though – some were there under the impression that Kuroba Kaito had by some means influenced the Hakuba boy to see how many people he could consider inviting over for some sort of massive sleep over. Most of them believed the story, especially after meeting Kaito.

Hakuba himself had disappeared sometime in the middle of the day only to reappear a couple of hours later, apparently arguing with a redheaded girl with red eyes, dressed in black – plus various pieces of outlandish jewellery – and a few suitcases hovering around her. Hakuba seemed to be pointedly ignoring that last point as he talked, even though he sometimes had to dodge random levitating objects that seemed to sporadically want to hit him whenever the witch wanted to make a point. Sometimes a rather pointed point.

"I would not have even _thought_ of stalking you, as you so childishly put it, if you had even once thought to _talk_ to me."

Her shoulders thrown back as she walked, her nose was up in the air in regally annoyed manner, as if she was unaffected by the whole ordeal of being forgotten.

"As I said before, Koizumi-san, it was not me who said that you were stalking us. Nor indeed did I use that term."

"You _implied_ it," she said, as if implying that someone had done something had the magical consequence of making the implication real, and therefore worthy of blame.

Hakuba glanced at her sidelong while moving out of the way fast enough to avoid being hit by something sure to leave a bruise.

"I did nothing of the sort. Although if you had wanted to be included, the least you could have done would be to have allowed Kuroba-kun the ability to ask you."

"And why not you?"

The purr in her words was more implied than anything else, but Hakuba still had to swallow to regain his pride. Not to mention his detective's rationale.

"I believe because it was Kuroba who had been compiling the lists, with some amount of help from Kudo-kun and the girls. _I_ have mostly been involved in the technological side of things."

Akako sniffed delicately, as if she had just had to deal with something that had smelt particularly bad.

"Computers. Gadgets. Hmph. They are none of them a match for my powers."

Hakuba smiled faintly. It was the smile of someone who had heard something similar from the same person several times previously and was still sure that they were not completely in their right mind. The fact that she seemed able to back up her claims did not, in fact, help matters.

"As I believe I was saying, Koizumi-san, I was attempting something rather important."

She rolled her eyes to the heavens.

"You were trying to locate Nakamori-chan."

It wasn't a question. He tried – and mostly succeeded – to hide his surprise, but apparently _mostly_ wasn't good enough.

"I do know these things, you know. Besides, what else do you expect a girl to do when one of her friends suddenly disappears without warning or trace, and various others – who all _happen_ to be connected to detectives for some reason – start failing to appear at school?" She sniffed again. "It doesn't take a genius to figure something like that out, you know, _Saguru-chan_."

Hakuba sighed, pushing down his annoyance. Luckily they only had a few hundred yards or so until they reached the doors and then he would be free. He hoped. It would be awfully – distracting – to be trying to work with someone like her in the same room. Not that he would ever say anything against a lady, but Koizumi Akako, he had to admit to himself, was a distraction in and of herself. The only other who had been able to be like that with him was Kuroba, and then for completely different reasons. Kuroba had been – still was, to a certain extent – a mystery. Koizumi, quite simply, wasn't. It was for that exact reason that she was distracting.

"Perhaps then, if you believe yourself to be so powerful, you could _tell_ us what we need to know!"

For a moment she glanced at him as though searching through his soul and rifling through what she found there. She looked away, and did not say anything in response until they had crossed the threshold of his home.

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't. Either way. . . I think that you had rather keep a look out for dogs, Saguru-chan."

And with that, she swept off, taking her luggage with her, heading straight towards the direction of where the new so-called 'secret room' was, even though all of the staff knew it was there, just not to go near it for now.

A confused Hakuba Saguru stared after her for a moment or two before following reluctantly after her, not knowing how she knew her way around the place, but certainly not trusting her there.

---

Kaito looked up with a smirk as Hakuba and Akako – plus floating luggage – entered the room. The uptight detective looked positively harried, and the redhead was pointedly trying to ignore him, it seemed.

"Why, hello, Miss Witch."

Keiko, who had been lying on the floor with a book, frowned at him.

"That's _rude_, Kaito-kun. What has Koizumi-chan ever done to you?"

The luggage still trailing after her, Akako draped herself across Kaito, who was tinkering away at something.

"So, Kuroba-kun. How goes the search?"

"Eh? What do you mean?"

He threw a meaningful glance over in Keiko's direction.

"I know perfectly well what you are up to," she said pointedly. "I was aware before I came."

Keiko gave them both a confused look, shrugged, and continued to read the romance novel Hakuba-kun had let her take out from the library. She'd been almost surprised to find that he'd had Japanese translations of _Pride and Prejudice_. Then again, he _was_ half-English. She could see the 'stiff upper lip' right now, in fact.

Kaito raised an expressive eyebrow, and something went _ting_ in the gadget.

"And what, exactly, are you going to do about it?"

Strange, thought Keiko. Kaito never used to sound so. . . suave, and sophisticated, and –

She looked at him again, and shook her head. He still _looked_ like a goofball.

"Come now, Kuroba-kun," Akako purred. "Surely you knew? That depends entirely on _you_."

"Oh?"

"Mm-hm. _Do_ you want my help – or don't you?"

"Say I do," said Kaito almost indifferently. "What would the catch be? What would _you_ get out of it? I may be a magician, but I'm no fool, Miss Witch."

"Kaito-kun, take that back!"

"Oh, you certainly are a Magician, Kuroba-kun," she said, playing with a strand of his hair. The capital letter was implied and not completely unheard. "My only and greatest reward would be to see this. . . entertainment. . . through to the end."

"That's all this is to you?" Kaito sounded angrily sharp for once, a rare enough occurrence that Keiko looked up, only to be surprised by the fact that his face gave away nothing of how he sounded. "A game? A show to watch? Is that all our lives are worth to you?"

Akako extricated herself from the magician – or was that Magician? – and walked coldly to one side. When she turned back to them, her arms were crossed and a slight frown creased her near perfect forehead.

"Hardly. If I had thought the situation merely as you say, I would never have either let you find me or come along with you when – or if – you did. I wanted to know how far you would come on your own. If you _needed_ me or not." She tossed her hair out of her face. "Of course, the fact that if I had helped you earlier you would have gotten yourself and whoever else was involved killed _might_ have crossed my mind..."

Kaito half-dropped his project, stood up, and crossed his arms at her.

"You _know_, don't you? You _know_ where –"

"Where the thing you seek lies? Oh, yes. From a certain point of view."

Kaito took a step towards her, and then another.

"Where. Is. Sh-?"

His mouth suddenly stopped making any sound halfway through his word. It might have been because of the finger Akako had languidly put up a few inches away from her own mouth, with all the necessity of being obeyed that came with a strict nursery teacher, or the words that don't need excess air to get into your head.

"Now, now, Kuroba-kun. All in good time. First, however, I need to put these up in my lodgings, a hot, steaming mug of hot chocolate, and then a nice long talk with you, Saguru-chan and Kudo-san."

A door slammed in the distance.

"Better make that _two_ mugs of hot chocolate, will you?"

With that, she and Hakuba left, the blond detective looking rather put out with the situation he had found himself in. Keiko turned to Kaito.

"You really should stop calling her a witch, you know. It's not nice, and I'm sure she'd be much nicer to you if you did."

Kaito snorted. For Keiko, who was used to Kaito always sounding like he was either laughing or ready to laugh, the sudden absence of Kaito-laughter was a difficult concept to get her head around.

"I mean, just because she's got red hair, and talks funny, and likes weird jewellery, and dresses up strange and sometimes odd things happen around her, it doesn't mean she's a witch."

"No," agreed a somewhat smaller person reading a book on physics not too far away. "I'd rather say it was the floating suitcases that followed her up the stairs."

---

The Ekoda police station was in an uproar.

Or, most specifically, the Kaitou Kid Task Force section of the Ekoda police station. Not that anyone passing through would know, that is. All they would see would be a lot of men and women rushing almost aimlessly about, trying to get something done, and wondering why three detectives, a redheaded girl in a black dress and a white-suited criminal were standing right in the middle of their workplace. Most of them were wondering why the criminal hadn't been arrested yet, and didn't have handcuffs on. The rest were wondering where the coffee was.

The fact that it was early enough in the morning that some of the night shift workers were still there did not help matters. In fact, it only clogged them up, leaving the day shift with very little space in which to move.

Which was exactly the way Kaito liked it. If there were crowds, he could disappear at the drop of a smoke bomb – flash would be cruel to Shinichi's sensitive eyes – and become nobody, anybody. Even if the vampire detective would have instantly dragged him back if he had wanted to try anything.

The ten of them were gathered around the map in the middle of the area set aside for the Task Force, showing Ekoda and the areas surrounding the town. Inspectors Megure and Nakamori stood opposite each other at the middle, Chayaki next to Nakamori and both Takagi and Satou flanking Megure. Hakuba and Akako politely half ignored the presence of the other, even though they were standing right next to each other, and both were staring at Kaito, who was right at that moment in the persona of Kaitou Kid, with Kudo Shinichi on one side and Hattori Heiji on the other.

Not exactly one of Kaito's top ten places to hang out at while in uniform. Slash that – it wasn't even on the top one hundred. The number of police officers gathered in the exact same place where he happened to be freaked him out. Only slightly, though. Not that anyone else would realise, of course –

Shinichi nudged him gently in the side.

"Oi. Listen."

Except him, of course.

"So," Nakamori was saying. "You're telling me that you kids, with the exception of all of _one_ not even out of high school, are saying that you've found my daughter? That you've found her where everyone else has been stumped? Prove it."

"It was all a mixture of various unconventional methods, sir," Hakuba said, glaring at Akako's smirk at the mention of _unconventional methods_.

Nakamori grunted and Megure hummed, both affected by the same phrase, both of their gazes flickering over to Kaito. Kaito – or rather, Kid – didn't say anything.

"According to what we've gathered, the most likely site is here," Kudo said, pointing to a spot on the map a few kilometres north of Ekoda. What he wasn't saying was that he had gone there himself the previous night to scout things out. In fact, he had arrived late to the meeting by ten or twenty minutes, hair still wet from a last-minute shower.

"We've already looked over the area," Hattori started, hands casually in jacket pockets and Sax cap still firmly in place. "Our best bet's gotta be to go after them where they're not expectin' us."

"And where would that be?" asked Takagi.

"Well," the Osakan said with an ironic smirk. "Where would you expect someone to come at you if you were tryin' to trap 'em?"

Takagi looked surprised, as did various other officers. Most looked confused.

"I would expect to have the forces come through the back," Takagi said slowly. "Is that what you meant?"

Hattori only smirked.

Kid inclined his head. The rest of the table started slightly, having almost gotten used to his presence.

"It was," Kaito said with the thief's silken voice. "Therefore, mina-san, the attack force goes exactly there."

"Wait, what do you mean _attack_ force?"

"Simple, Megure-keibu. You know, don't you, Nakamori-keibu? Divert with one hand," – he sprinkled a small amount of confetti into the air – "and play the real trick with the other," – he finished, producing Hakuba's pocket watch in the free hand.

"In other words," Hakuba said flatly as he held out his hand and then caught the article that the thief had just let fly over to him, "the 'attack' force will be diversionary. Every effort will be made to make sure that Nakamori Aoko's captors believe that we are planning to retake her via that route. Meanwhile, the more covert side will be leading the main rescue operation – straight through the front entrance."

"Isn't that a little, ah, obvious, though, Hakuba-kun?"

"Of course it is, Megure-keibu," Kaito smirked. "That's the beauty of it."

Satou gave a glancing frown in his direction.

"Are you sure that we can trust him?" she asked the room at large.

Hakuba gave a long-suffering sigh, to which the other teens either smirked or sniggered.

"I have to," he explained. "The suicidal idiot and I are the rescue operation."

At this unexpected revelation, half the room – anyone who had heard, that is – exploded into nervous, outraged talk.

"Absolutely not."

Everyone looked at Nakamori, who was turning red in the face and had both hands palm down on the table, covering part of Tokyo.

"I won't hear of it. You," he pointed at Hakuba, who merely blinked, "are too young, and you don't have a clue about what you're doing. You," he pointed at Kid, who crossed his arms in a stubborn display, "you are a foolish, suicidal idiot and I don't know why you're not in cuffs yet. We'll send a commando team. SWAT. You're not going."

Tension between the two groups rocketed, and yet neither Hakuba nor Kid were moved by the display.

Hattori shrugged, the picture of nonchalance.

"Whether you like it or not, this is the way things're going here, keibu. Hakuba's the only one of us here who Aoko-san knows on light other than you, who's going. Kuroba's stayin' back with the others," – or so they would believe – "an' there's no one better than the ahou here to get the smug bastard both in _and_ outta there in one piece. Face it, keibu. This ain't a discussion."

Kaito knew Nakamori Ginzo better than perhaps anyone else in the room. He had grown up with the man's daughter for nearly eleven or more years now, and had been goading him as Kid once every so often for the past one and a half years. It had gotten to the point where Kaito could tell the precise measure of the Inspector's irritation or rage. And now –

Shoulders stooped. Hand run through hair as head tilts downward, eyes wandering away from where anyone's gaze might catch them. Mild – for a Nakamori – curse, aimed somewhere between his mouth and the map.

"Fine. _Fine_. Then who the bloody hell gets to lead this diversion of an attack force?"

Shinichi finished his tall cup of strong mocha – chocolate-flavoured coffee – and put his hands into his blazer pockets.

"Me, you and Hattori. That includes a team or two of officers. I'm in front. You and Hattori are behind, and the four of us will be in radio communication at all times. At the signal, all police personnel are to vacate the premises. _No one_ stays behind. This serves to draw them further out, making it easier to get Aoko-san safely out of there. We then meet back at Hakuba's. Any objections?"

There were none. Of course there wouldn't be – who would dare to? For one thing, this was Kudo Shinichi, meitantei and saviour of the Japanese police force. For another, the guy was a vampire, and it didn't take someone who knew him well enough to know that to get that the guy was _dangerous_. It'd been bad enough when he'd been human – at least then they'd stood a chance. Now?

Well. Maybe Kid would've been safe, but if he'd caught anyone else while this tense and on edge, Kaito was sure that if there was a choice between dealing with Kudo or an angered Wookiee, anyone with sense would choose latter.

---

AN: I'd originally written all of chapters ten, eleven and twelve together. Then, since the total length of the three was about 16,000 words plus in length, I divided it into three. I simply wasn't going to have a chapter that long twice (there's one in HP&CS – Blessed by the Trickster). So here you have it.

Quote from Wiki. ^_^; It fits, though...


	12. Cruelty and Kindness

The Vampire Detective

Chapter Twelve – Cruelty and Kindness

Disclaimer - *drops dead* I have no money...

_Let the guns be mounted, make a brave show of waging war, and pry the lid off Pandora's Box once more – Amy Lowell_

-

In a room about the size of his library back home, Shinichi was pacing.

It wasn't as though he was the only one who couldn't keep still, though – Hattori, wearing clothes that were easy to move about in and carrying his bokken in his hands, was half practicing kata and half arguing incessantly with Kazuha. He had seen Kaito only a short while ago, exchanging a few short words with Hakuba before going up to the roof. He wouldn't be seen again in the house until they had brought Aoko back, and even then he would be late getting in because of the need to keep up the cover story.

"Stop worrying, Shinichi. You're going to do just fine. I know you will."

He bit his lip, accidentally drawing blood with a suddenly sharp tooth. Licking the wound clean before it healed, he tried to force himself to relax, running a hand through his hair.

"This isn't just detective work, Ran. They expect me to do this. I – the closest I've ever come to anything like this was before Conan came, and that was just at a Kid heist! Kid didn't even know who he was up against!"

"And I'm sure they don't know what they're up against this time, either," Ran retorted dryly.

Shinichi stopped pacing to face her properly.

"It's not just that. Well, it is that too, but. . ."

He looked at her, lost.

"I guess my point is, do _I_ even know what they're up against this time?"

Ran didn't answer. She held him close, but she couldn't answer.

---

"You idiot! What do you think you're _doing_!?"

"What do _I_ think I'm doing? What about _you_? You damn well knew I was aiming there!"

Kazuha crossed her arms.

"Well, I had to get your attention _somehow_. You're just looking all serious all the time, and even if I do say anything, you just grunt like some caveman!"

"I do not! I just don't have the time for this!"

"Time for what, Heiji? Time to talk, maybe say goodbye to me? Time to let me say something to you?"

"Damn it, Kazuha! You're just so distracting!"

"That was the point, idiot."

Heiji let the wooden sword rest on one shoulder, blunt side down.

"Fine, then. What is it you want?"

For the first time, Kazuha wavered.

"I. . ."

"Well?"

"I just want you to come back to me, you idiot!"

At first, Heiji was taken aback. It wasn't that he hadn't expected it at all, really, it was just that he hadn't expected her to say it. He smiled.

"How about I make you a promise, then?"

"Hmph. Depends on the promise."

Heiji chuckled, taking off his cap and putting it squarely on her head.

"How about that kind? I'm comin' back for that, so don't you lose it, ya hear?"

Kazuha looked at him with stark surprise in her eyes for a moment or two. She nodded, wordless.

---

Kaito sat on the roof, overlooking the surrounding area. Everything that he would need for the night – as both Kid and himself – was stuffed into a medium sized rucksack on his back. He wasn't Kid now, though. Too obvious, too clear to see when he wanted to be unseen. Too much attention.

Plus, everyone else believed that Kaito was standing watch on the roof with Akako. So if anyone had noticed the radio device attached to his ear like a Bluetooth earpiece that had the exact same design as a certain three detectives, no one had said. Perhaps, as he had often been told by many people, his father included, it wasn't always what the audience _saw_ that mattered, but what they – and the performer – _wished_ to be seen.

Apart from the stars and the voices that steadily drifted their way up to him, he was pretty much alone. It was the highest place in, or rather on, the house. The best viewpoint, and the best place for thinking.

"Ah... so there you are, Kuroba-kun."

Kaito let out a long, sow breath.

"I should have know that you would be here, Koizumi. Admiring your handiwork?"

Akako gave a short laugh, but he could tell that her heart wasn't truly in it.

"Perhaps. Perhaps I too am merely admiring the scenery."

Kaito snorted.

"The day you simply do _that_, Miss Witch, will be a strange day indeed. Spill."

The witch huffed.

"I _do_ have to keep an eye on these shields, you know. So many strong-willed personalities all gathered in one place makes my magic go strange."

Kaito raised an eyebrow in her general direction.

"And I thought you said I made things difficult for you."

"You do. Together, you make it go haywire." She sniffed delicately. "Lucifer can't even see destinies properly any more."

"So sad."

"I'm so glad you commiserate."

For a few minutes they just sat there, bathed in the light of both the stars and the magenta glow of the magick shields that she had put in place that would ensure at least some protection from those who meant harm.

Kaito smiled absently at the memory of how Hakuba had been able to diffuse suspicions as to its origins by saying that it was the result of various private experiments in laser technology. Some of them had actually believed him.

Slowly, steadily, the officers started to gather together into coherent groups to begin the relatively short journey to where they were keeping Aoko.

His eyes narrowed.

_Aoko. They've got Aoko. I wasn't there when she needed me. Because of that, they've got her. Because of me. . ._

Because of me.

With the grace of the thief he was, he stood, hearing the signal as he did so.

"Ne, Koizumi? Don't let them get hurt."

She watched him as he disappeared from sight.

---

Hakuba Saguru took one last look at his earpiece before putting it on. It was obvious really who had designed them – a four-way radio system hidden behind the design of a heart shaped leaf. A four-leafed clover. Kuroba or Hattori might say that it was lucky. Saguru simply thought it was egotistic. He didn't really mind, though.

It was a symbol. Besides, Kami knew they would need all of the blessings and luck that they could get tonight.

He sighed, leaving the warmth of his home for the steadily colder weather of mid-September. Until they reached the actual site, he would be travelling with Shinichi, Hattori and the others.

"So," said Nakamori senior. "Still going along with that crazy plan, are you?"

"Yes," he replied shortly. "And you don't need to tell me that it's crazy. It only has to work."

Nakamori grunted in understanding.

"The men are just about ready."

Saguru looked out and up, catching a glimpse of shadow-within-shadow on the roof.

"Send out the signal, then. We're heading out."

---

They left in staggered groups, some by car, some by train, some by other methods and some didn't even leave at all. Those who stayed did so to make sure that there was more than just magic to rely on to protect the ones who did not even know that they were involved at all.

They were there in less than an hour.

As the only person in their group who could move about silently and quickly, Shinichi went ahead to make sure that the Black Organisation minions were performing to type. So far, they had been and still were, but that didn't mean that they would continue to do so.

A small part of him, though, found itself almost wishing that they wouldn't. He ignored it, keeping the open mind that a detective needed.

A few minutes later, he received the signal from Kaito and Hakuba to confirm that they were both in place.

It was time to fly.

---

"So."

Facing the nondescript gates of the clichéd abandoned warehouse-slash-office building, Saguru hugged his arms close to his chest in an effort to keep the cold – and his nervous tension – at bay.

Kaito – or rather, _Kid_, now – wasn't saying anything. He was dressed as Kid mostly, anyway. Only the top hat was missing, and that was tucked safely away, er, somewhere. The rest of him was covered with a dark cloak that put any piece of white that wasn't sufficiently cloaked in deep shadows. His arms were crossed and there was an overall more serious than usual feeling about him.

He cleared his throat, somewhat unnerved about what he was about to do and who he was doing it with, even though he was well within the law. It was still breaking and entering, to a certain extent.

"What – how are we supposed to do this?"

There was a slight pause before Kid spoke.

"We start by waiting for the opportune moment, Tantei-san. When that presents itself to us, we act. How we act depends on how that moment shows itself to us. We might go through the front doors." A shrug. "We might not."

Saguru narrowed his eyes.

"That does not exactly help, Kuroba. Neither to the plan nor to my nerves."

"Good."

"And what exactly do you mean by that?!"

"Good, as in 'good, at least it isn't just me'. That kind of good."

"That's even worse, you know."

"The idea is that you either turn into a pile of nerves or get over it. So far as I know, you aren't the kind to break down that easily. So I suggest – move, now!"

The Kid grabbed him by the arm, dragging him all the way across the courtyard before he could even think to protest. By the time he _could_ think, it was already too late and they were flat against the brick wall of the place. Out of the corner of his eye, he could only just make out the thief's trademark smirk.

"I thought we were going in through the front door, Ku- Kid! This is _not_ the front door!"

"Really? I was so sure it was. And Tantei-kun told me he'd left it just – about – _here_."

With a smear of oil and a wriggle, the air vent slid mostly quietly free of its place, Kid putting the likely quite heavy steel barrier into the nearby bushes.

"I know what a front door is supposed to look like," Saguru said with slight misapprehension, "And that is not one."

"Could've fooled me." Kid gestured towards the hole that he had created in the wall. "You first, Tantei-san."

After a short glare at the guilty party, Saguru did exactly that, climbing head first into the air vent, feeling more self-conscious than he ever had, even at the first crime that he had solved without anyone else's help.

"White Wizard and White Knight in. Bloodhound and Samurai, do you copy?"

There was a crackle of static before Kid got a reply.

"We copy, Wizard. Everything going according to plan at our end. Contact us again in five minutes. Bloodhound out."

Good. That meant that the distraction was working. If the distraction kept on working, they wouldn't have to worry so much once they reached Aoko. If it worked well enough, then maybe they'd be able to leave by the front, rather than the air vents. It would, at the very least, do his head a little good. Too much sneaking around wasn't good for a detective.

The minutes wore on, radio contact with 'Bloodhound' and 'Samurai' continued, and something tickled at the edge of his thoughts. Especially when he didn't want it to.

_I think that you had rather keep a look out for dogs. . ._

But. . . there hadn't been any – out front, or out back.

_. . .a look out for dogs. . ._

He shook his head angrily, attempting to rid himself of the thought. It wasn't useful, and was only cluttering his mind. A mind which should have been on the rescue and safe return of one Nakamori Aoko. Not some wiccan's mind games.

Even if she could do some rather extraordinary things.

---

It wasn't long before guns, tranquilising darts, footballs and various other long-distance weapons the men lead by Shinichi and the others had been using to knock the snipers and grunts out weren't useful any more.

Within minutes they were methodically handcuffing the unconscious Black Organisation members, dragging them off by the cartload into the black and white police cars waiting nearby. Some, mostly through friendly fire, were found to be needing some medical treatment before taken anywhere.

Some, more in tune with their duty to the criminal organisation than others, did not need medical attention, and were not indeed even unconscious. Those were merely moved a short way away to be dealt with in a secure environment at a later date.

The waste of life made Shinichi angry.

They might be murderers, they might be a part of the Organisation that had made his life a living hell for months on end, but when it came right down to it they were just stupid, idiotic _people_. All that was wrong with them was that their leaders had fallen into the proverbial abyss, seen themselves looking back, and had liked what they had seen.

He growled at the way his thoughts were taking him and accidentally knocked a lackey into the corridor wall with one hand, where they fell unconscious and slumped to the floor. Several of the men he was with stared at him in stark surprise for a few moments before going back to their own minor battles.

Before he had the chance to berate himself further, he was nearly deafened by radio static yet again. He was going to _have_ to do something about that.

"Oi, Ku- Bloodhound. How're things going on your end?"

Shinichi sighed.

"Fine so far, but I just had a minor accident. Nothing serious."

"Whose side?"

"Theirs. Like I said – probably only a slight concussion. Why?"

"I just got a message from Wizard. Seems like they're gettin' close."

"Right. Did he say where the security room was?"

"Yeah." Hattori proceeded to list off the directions according to where Shinichi was. "We still sticking to the plan?"

The eastern detective nodded, even though he knew that the other couldn't see him. "Yes, we are. As soon as I get there, you tell Nakamori-keibu to give the signal. As soon as he does- "

"I get over there on the double and we both go find the others. I got ya. I already got ya ten dozen times already."

Shinichi grinned. "So long as you have got it, that's all that matters. See you there."

Hattori gave a grumbled reply and cut off. With the directions laid out in his mind, he superimposed them onto the map he had of the place inside his head.

Seconds later, it was as though he had vanished from the corridor.

---

In the distance, Kid could hear the premises being vacated, leaving the four of them with enough people to deal with that it wouldn't tax them and, hopefully, they would be able to get Aoko out safely without too much trouble.

They were still in the air vents.

It wasn't too far, though – only a few meters, and he was counting them down. Trying not to think about what he might be faced with once he got there. Kid's motto was that No One Got Hurt, but if what he saw was bad enough, he was afraid that the Kuroba Kaito part of him was going to forget that.

Which was, in fact, one of the reasons why he had one stuck up, mostly pompous British detective almost literally on his tail. The guy was even still wearing a suit.

In front of the last grate in this particular 'corridor' of vents, Kid froze. Not expecting the sudden lack of forward motion, Hakuba nearly barrelled straight into him.

"_Would_ you watch where you're going?"

"I was," Kaito replied softly. "We're here."

With a sharp hiss of breath, Hakuba fell silent. 'Here', the main purpose of their mission. Here, where Aoko was. He could see her. It was a small room, really – probably originally a broom closet or something. That at least would explain away the hooks on the walls that now held on to manacles, holding her hands above her head. She was dirty, tired – more like close to exhaustion really and looked as if she hadn't eaten properly in all the time that she had been missing, but apart from that she didn't look too badly off.

"You're still going to do it?" Hakuba finally said, voice soft in the echoing metallic tunnel.

Kaito swallowed hard and nodded.

"I have to."

Hakuba sighed but didn't say any more. The detective was the only one of the four who was new to all of this, who hadn't really kept secrets before, not had anything special to keep a secret for. He probably thought that Kaito was going to do the right thing. Kaito just wished that he was as sure.

---

There was a light.

There hadn't been light for too long. It hurt her eyes.

"_. . . Aoko. Ne, Aoko!_"

She was hearing voices again. Why else would she be hearing him? It wasn't as though he'd be able to find her. No one knew where she was.

"Ne, Aoko. Wake up."

But she was awake, wasn't she? She _was_. Except her eyes were so tired. And she didn't want to see only walls and darkness when she opened them.

"Aoko?"

A gloved hand brushed her cheek, and she jumped, startled. Someone was here. But who? It was Kaito's voice, but why would he be here? How?

"Aoko?!" There was a rustle of something soft-sounding. "Did you see that? She's all right!"

Someone else sighed.

"That's a good thing, Kuroba, but unless we get out of here quickly we are going to have trouble on the way."

And that was. . . Hakuba-kun? Why was he here? The next thing she knew she'd be hearing Koizumi-chan and the teacher.

"Is there trouble right now?"

"No. Not yet, anyway."

"Good. Then you can come over here and help me."

Footsteps across the floor. She could practically feel Hakuba's – at least, she thought it was Hakuba-kun's – presence beside her.

"Here. You just catch her. Make sure she doesn't get hurt, right?"

"Of course."

Soft, smooth gloves moved to her wrists, bringing small bits of metal with them. Something caught in her memory, but fluttered away before she could try to grab at it. He _smelled_ of Kaito. That smell that was just him. Of smoke and magic and starlight and the unknown. A mystery she had never been able to unravel. Her childhood friend who, she now realised, was more to her than just a childhood friend.

_Click. Clatter._

One hand was free, her arm falling almost painfully to her side. Her hand felt tingly with pins and needles. But it would be all right soon. She nearly thought to wonder how Kaito had been able to _do_ that, but then remembered – _he's a magician. He can do just about anything_.

With another series of clicks and clatter, her other arm was free, too. Unrestrained from the wall, Hakuba held her upright.

"Aoko?"

She tried to open her eyes, as the light from what she assumed was some sort of torch or the opened door was less blinding now than it had been before. Nevertheless, she was still too weak just yet. Too tired. So instead, she smiled.

Her unexpected response was to be hugged suddenly by Kaito. Only, she realised with a numb sort of feeling, it couldn't be him.

Because _Kaito_ wasn't the one who wore soft, smooth, silken gloves, jacket and shirt. _Kaito_ wasn't the one who had a monocle that had a charm dangling off it that chimed when it hit stray bits of chain. _Kaito_ wasn't the one who bumped her head with the brim of a hat as he drew her closer.

Sensation and shock coming back to her, she opened her eyes.

She immediately wished that she hadn't.

The light was coming from the open door. From it, she could see bits of Hakuba, who was still holding her up. In an almost silhouetted form, she could also see the figure of the Kaitou Kid. The person who had just hugged her, dressed in his trademark suit and hat and monocle and Hakuba-kun wasn't doing anything, he was just _watching_ them. He had. . . called Kaitou Kid . . . Kuroba. Kuroba . . . the Kaitou?

No. There had to be a mistake.

But there was no mistaking those violet-blue eyes or that unruly brown hair or that Kaito-smell.

Hakuba made a motion with his hand to something on his ear.

"White Knight to Bloodhound and Samurai. Do you copy?"

Radio static. Kaito-Kid glanced over at him.

"We read, White Knight. This is Samurai. What's your status?"

Both Hakuba-kun and Kaito-Kid looked relieved at the faintly familiar voice. She was sure that she'd heard it before – before all of this had even started. She wasn't sure where from, though.

"Status good, Samurai. We have Blue Birthday."

Aoko started. _Blue Birthday? Who was - ? Oh. That's me_. Her father had named her after that stone, after all. It had also been one of Kid's first heists since his return.

"Aoko? Please, Aoko. I need you to trust me. Us. Do you trust us?"

Her throat was still dry, both from not having enough to drink and from what she was seeing and hearing.

_Could_ she trust them? Kaito-Kid was still talking to her as if he was Kaito, but she knew that he could imitate anyone he put his mind to. He could even imitate _her_. But then again, Kaito could imitate people too. He just hadn't shown it in so long. Ever since Kid had come back, in fact.

So that meant. . . if she thought for one moment that her best friend and the thief were one person, did she trust _Kaito_? Hakuba seemed to know who he was and still trust him.

"Aoko – _please_."

She nodded.

Kaito-Kid and Hakuba both seemed to relax a lot.

Then came the radio static, closely followed by the same voice as before.

"Oi, Ku- Wizard!" 'Samurai' seemed to be speaking quietly into the radio transmitter, almost as if he were afraid to be overheard. "You know what we were talking about before? I might be wrong, but I think we got a Code Four."

And then, there was madness.

---

Saguru frowned, unnerved by how the confusing news had upset Kuroba's balance.

"Kuroba. Tell me this – what, exactly, is a _Code Four_ supposed to be?"

A little of the colour returned to the thief's face.

"Something I hoped would never happen, Hakuba."

He saw Aoko flinch at the returned Kid voice, hearing it for the first time since dropping into the room she had been held in.

"And what would that be?"

His tone matched Kuroba's for the steel in it.

"Ah. . ." The thief glanced speculatively up at where the grate had been to the air vent tunnels. "How well do you remember the way in here?"

"Of course," he replied, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why?"

"I suggest you get ready to leave quickly."

"Kuroba, if I don't get an answer soon you're going to regret- "

Footsteps echoed towards them down the corridor, joined with the _bdump-bdump_ of what sounded like a ball. Namely, a football.

Ah. That should be Kudo Shinichi, then. Maybe _he_ would have some sort of answer.

Kuroba tensed. Swallowed. His hand twitched towards his back, where he knew that Kid's card gun was kept under the hang glider and dress jacket. He did not, however, draw it out.

Sure enough, seconds later the figure of the other detective turned the last corner towards them, once-blue blazer grimy and dirty and both that and the pair of trousers he had been wearing were ripped in several places. Even so, not much blood showed through.

As he drew closer to them, however, Saguru noticed just how badly off Kudo Shinichi was.

He _was_ bleeding in places. It also looked as though he had tried to mop up either his or someone else's wounds with bits and pieces of his own clothes, as there was unblemished skin underneath. His face was pale, paler than the last time he had seen him, and his eyes, while not bloodshot, were too bright, as though feverish. His hair looked so mussed up that it was almost as though he was looking at a Kuroba Kaito clone except for the damages he had gone through, and that there were no traces of violet in his gaze. An almost disconcerting gaze.

Kudo looked over at them, taking everything in. Saw Aoko. Kaito. Him.

"Is she all right?" He gestured to Aoko with his head.

Kaito inclined his head. "She's fine. Just needs to get out of here."

"I know the feeling."

Kaito crossed his arms and cocked his head to one side.

"Oi, Kudo? How long has it been since you've had anything to eat?"

Kudo was taken aback.

"What? Last time you did, I think. Why?"

Something about Kaito suddenly turned stony.

"Not like _that_."

The change was instant and visible. Kudo's eyes widened in a kind of shock, his body language changed from at ease and ready for anything to wary, unsure of himself, backing slowly away from them.

"No. _No_."

"Hakuba, take Aoko out by the way we came in. Go back. We'll meet you there."

Not for a single second did Kaito keep his eyes off of Kudo.

"Kuroba – would you mind terribly telling me what the hell is going on here?"

"Later."

"Kuro- !"

"I mean it. _Later_, Hakuba. Now _go_."

There was a sort of steel in those words that hadn't really been heard when he was the Kaitou Kid, hadn't ever been heard from Kuroba Kaito. He gave one last look at the scene unfolding in front of him and steered Aoko over to the where the air vent was.

---

Kaito waited until he couldn't hear Hakuba and Aoko anymore before advancing a short couple of steps towards Shinichi, who had backed all the way to one of the doorways down the hall. He was hugging his body with his arms, as if he was about to be attacked.

"What the bloody hell did you think you were _doing_!?"

"I – I didn't. Wasn't thinking. Just – did. I forgot."

Kaito sighed and looked away, hands finding themselves in trouser pockets.

"Never mind. Not your fault."

Shinichi looked up at him, sharply.

"Not my _fault_? I should have remembered! I should have -!"

"_None_ of us remembered, Shinichi. We _all_ forgot. You, me, Hattori, all of us who knew. No one's to blame. Either that, or we all are."

The detective shook his head.

"Then what . . . what do we do – what do _I_ do now? I can't just go back there now. You know I can't."

"Yeah, we know. That's why you ain't goin' back yet."

Two pairs of eyes – one violet-blue and one not quite human – moved to look over to the end of the corridor, where Hattori Heiji could now be seen sauntering towards them.

"What are _you_ doing here, Hattori?"

The Osakan grinned lopsidedly. "Nice to see you too, Kudo." He drew his attention over to Kaito. "How're things here?"

"Fine so far. Hakuba and Aoko are on their way back."

Hattori nodded sharply, once.

"Good."

A pointed glance of a look was shared between the Osakan detective and the phantom thief.

Code four was something that they had hoped would never have to be used. There had been other codes, but none of them had quite the same personal import as number four which, when said in Japanese, was the first syllable of Shinichi's name. There was a reason for that.

Hattori Heiji and the Kaitou Kid were the only ones going on the mission who knew about Shinichi's . . . condition. They were also the only ones who were quite so pointedly blunt about it, and the danger that came with it.

It had been one thing in particular that they had been thinking about at the time when the code was brought into being, except it hadn't been something that they should have been worrying about as a thing that might happen in the future. It had been happening right then and there, under their noses, and they hadn't even noticed. In the rush and clamour of moving Kuroba Touichi's old magic and heist tools over to their new base of operations at Hakuba's, the contents of the fridge had been overlooked. Forgotten.

And now they were paying the price.

With one hand nervously scratching at the nape of his neck, Hattori spoke up again.

"We didn't get all of 'em, you know. There's still one or two out cold over that way, you know."

Shinichi's eyes flashed. For a moment they reflected the steady light of the hallway and nearby rooms. When they turned back to what passed for normal at the moment, they seemed somewhat deadened.

Kid nodded, in understanding and resignation. This wasn't going to be nice. It didn't have to be. It only had to be done.

"Ne, Hattori?" His voice was quiet, with all of Kid's cadences yet without the nick-name Kid had for the Osakan. "You want to stay? If you don't, Hakuba should be back with the cars by now and starting back to base."

This earned him two sharp glances, one questioning and one more a glare, but Hattori soon looked away, bokken over his shoulder.

"Sure thing. I'll tell them we had a bit of tidyin' up to do back here. Doubt your friend'll believe me, but I can fake it fer the rest of 'em, at least."

Kid gave the detective a rather wan smile.

"I wouldn't put it past him to have figured that something is up already. Tantei-san does learn easily, after all. I'll say that much about him. Not nearly as fast as you, though," he said, the last aimed at Shinichi himself.

For the first time since the sensitive subject had first been breached, the vampire smiled wryly.

"I'm not sure whether or not I should take that as a compliment, coming from you."

Kid smirked and Hattori laughed, which turned not so subtly into a sort of cough.

"Whatever. I'll be seein' ya later. Don't anyone go dyin' on me, ya hear?"

"Don't worry," Kid said easily. Shinichi opened his mouth and then closed it again, startled at that ease. "No one will."

With that, he was gone, leaving Kaito alone with Shinichi.

Minutes dragged by in embarrassed, reluctant silence.

"I'm not going to do it."

"Do what?"

"You know what. I can't. I just – can't."

"Can't or won't?"

"You just don't understand, do you? I. Can't."

"No one's going to get hurt here, Shinichi."

"_Hurt_? People have _died_ here! There are dozens of people hurt and unconscious everywhere! I _helped_. Ever since this started, I – I've been changing. I changed. You can't possibly understand how different it is to just wake up and everything that held you down is just _gone_."

"More than you'd realise – or did you conveniently forget that I wasn't always a thief? It came as just as much of a shock to me that I was who I was as it would have done to you, I'm sure. Don't think you can judge people as _not understanding_ just because you aren't fully human any more."

"But that's _it_. I'm not human. I try. But I'm not. Not anymore. There's something deeper, and especially now, at times like these, when I don't have the energy to fight all the time. So don't think that if I start I can just go back. I'm different."

Kid shook his head. "You really didn't listen to me when I was speaking, did you? I said _No One Gets Hurt_. Not today. Not here, not now. I'm not going to _let_ it happen."

"_Let_ it? I'm stronger than you. Faster. Everything. How could you not let something happen? How would _you_ be able to stop me? Because that's the point, you see. And if I was able to do it once, who's to say I'd be able to hold myself the _next_ time? Or the time after that? _Tell_ me, Kid!"

Kid looked into the vampire's eyes, finding only fear and desperation in their bright yet reflective depths.

"You," he said simply. "_You_ would hold yourself back, because it's what you do. You fight criminals, you don't become one. You protect people, you don't attack them. You fight, and you never, ever give up. I know that. Even at two feet tall you bested me; you _bet_ I know that. And I bet that somewhere in there, you do, too."

Shinichi looked away.

"I'm willing to wager you'd be able to stop _yourself_, Kudo Shinichi. You know what? I'm just here to _tell_ you that."

"You trust me an awful lot for someone who kept trying to run away from me," Shinichi said eventually, quietly enough that Kid wasn't even sure that he had heard him right. "If only all criminals were as insightful."

Kid made a face.

"Feh. If they were, we'd both be out of the job."

That earned him a laugh. One which, however, was cut short rapidly by the flicker of a grimace of pain and a sharp glance towards the prone figure of a Black Organisation figure lying belatedly in the doorway of an office.

He gave one last desperate look, to which Kid could only smile lopsidedly. It was a smile that Aoko would have recognised as 'I don't care that everything's going ten kinds of wrong, or that I've just been hit too hard on the head by your mop. I'm staying right here'. Shinichi could evidently translate it as the same thing, as seconds later he was heading across the hallway.

The vampire's fangs glinted sharply once, then moved.

---

AN: And there's the end. . . NOT. There's going to be an epilogue. Which ties up several loose ends. But not all.

*Cackles evilly*

Some of you know what I mean...!


	13. Epilogue

The Vampire Detective

Epilogue

_For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Luke, 11:10_

-

Hours dragged on as they waited. Every so often at regular intervals, reports of events would come through by radio. Various people took turns pacing, not able to stay still for very long. Others found things to be doing to keep themselves occupied, such as making cups of tea and bringing refreshments. None of them had been able to sleep at all, despite it being so late in the night that it wouldn't be too long until it was early in the morning. No one had been able to bring themself to interact with the ones who didn't know what was going on, knowing themselves well enough to understand that they would only spread the worry.

Mouri Ran was sick of it.

Sick and tired, afraid and angry and absolutely _infuriated_ with Kudo Shinichi.

She knew that he had had to go. But that didn't mean that she couldn't still be annoyed at him for leaving her and forcing her to wait for him yet again. A part of her wondered just how much of her life would be spent waiting for him, even when she knew that he was right beside her, even when he had told her that he wasn't going anywhere.

What was worse was that this time, she wasn't even the only one waiting.

Kazuha, who had usually teased her about Shinichi before, now held on tightly to her omamori, moving her weight from foot to foot. Megure-keibu hummed and grumbled while Takagi-keiji and Satou-keiji talked together and went over paperwork. Ai-chan's fingers drummed on the table she was sitting at, her eyes distant. Even Koizumi-chan was affected, she knew. It showed even in the short times when the witch (Ran shivered) came down from the roof and into company. She tried to hide it, but it simply didn't work.

When Inspector Nakamori and his men returned at last, the tension merely peaked. The final stretch. Only a short time now and the others would be back. Even and especially those from the teams who had come back were still worried. For the police officers who regularly set out to catch the criminal, the Kaitou Kid Task Force members were all singularly attached to the Kid himself.

Ran knew intimately that the feelings were mutual. They were _Kaito's_ Task Force, and he had been highly reluctant to involve them at all.

The clocks ticked on.

Koizumi-chan, who had slinked down as soon as they had started to enter the house, spared a brief glance at the wall clock before disappearing back up again.

It was far too long after that that Hakuba and Hattori had returned to them with Nakamori Aoko.

The moment he was in through the door, Hattori strode purposefully and unerringly over towards Kazuha, who instantly started to berate him on just how much of a stupid idiot he was. Hattori only started to smirk, then smile, then grin, then finally just hugged her, leaving the poor girl flustered, confused and bright pink, not to mention that it immediately ceased her rant.

Aoko came in just before Hakuba Saguru, who, while his suit had certainly seen better days, wasn't too much worse for wear. Having seen Aoko to her seat, Ran caught Hakuba aiming an irritated yet suspicious glare at Hattori. Leaving the girl momentarily to be fussed over by her father, she went over with great purpose and intent to Hattori Heiji.

"What's going on?"

Hattori jumped slightly, looking more than a little guilty if she did say so herself.

"Eh. . . nothing, really. Just a last minute change of plans. Kudo an' Ku- Kid're stayin behind a bit to clean up some loose ends."

"You look me in the eye and say that."

He closed them instead, unable.

"It's Shinichi, isn't it." It wasn't a question. It didn't have to be. "What's wrong? What's happened?"

Heiji looked at her.

"You don't wanna know, 'Neechan. 'Sides, they're gonna be fine.

"You better hope they are," she said, hands on hips. "They better be."

Despite his reassurances, he seemed as happy about the situation as she was, darting swift glances toward the door and at one point getting into a heated discussion with Koizumi Akako in one of the hallway until Hakuba went out and calmed things down.

In the end, Superintendant Chayaki strong-armed Nakamori and the men into going home and getting some rest. For the most part the officer's plan worked – the Task Force dispersed to the varied regions of outer Tokyo, that is. Nakamori himself had looked dead set on staying with his daughter the whole night long and until the last minute possible, but Hakuba and the other officers reassured the man that not only did he need rest (not to mention to clean out the house before Aoko got back to it) but also that his daughter was in possibly one of the safest places in the country, what with the buildings security and the number of people ready and able to protect her in the house.

Somehow, even though more than half of their number had comprised of police officers of some description and so were now gone, the atmosphere seemed almost to be a touch more relaxed.

Aoko had even started to become slightly more responsive, but still had short patience for conversation with anyone other than Hakuba or Hattori, though Ran hadn't found the girl too unwell-looking, only mildly mind-numbed. Ran recognised it easily. She had seen it before in herself, from the time not too long ago when she had found out that the person she loved was back, the little brother she had looked after for nearly a year had been that person, and that, not to be forgotten, that the creatures in the night were real.

As the only one she felt was truly able to sympathise, Ran simply sat there next to her, a friendly presence. No need to talk. Just to be there, and –

_Click-clack. Creak. . ._

Everyone's attention turned to the door and Ran stood. Aoko riveted a piercing blue gaze in the same direction as everyone else as they heard footsteps coming down the hall, then saw the daw open slowly to admit first Kaito, back in civilian clothes yet still somehow grimy and then, at long last, Shinichi.

Shinichi, who moved like a big cat. Shinichi, whose opaque blue eyes were like a mask of his very own, obscuring his thoughts and feelings from any who would read them there. A Shinichi who couldn't hide the constant scream of danger about him, even though if you relied on mere eyesight alone you would see clearly that he was withdrawn, a danger to no one.

She, who had never felt any sort of compunction to put her childhood friend on some sort of pedestal, did the first thing she thought of – she hugged him. He tensed slightly at first, but put hiss arms around her anyway for a moment before gently but firmly letting go as if he was afraid that he might break her.

Kaito was back to his usual boisterous self; laughing, grinning and generally making a well-meaning fool of himself. Hardly anyone noticed that, in between all this, he was shooting worried glances at not only Aoko, who was relaxing so far as to fall asleep in her armchair, but also Shinichi. No one seemed to comment on the fact that the only tricks that he did could be cone with one hand or one arm. Not to mention that when he went to carry Aoko up the stairs and to her room for the night, Shinichi was instantly there, helping. Neither of them said a word and Kaito didn't shrug the offer of help off.

And at one point, maybe, they saw a glimpse of white under the long sleeves that wasn't silk. A time or two when he winces, the fabric on his left arm tightening a little too much, showing a lump on the top of his forearm where there might or might not have been a knot in the white material probably glimpsed before.

No one asked.

---

Saguru had been on his way to speak to the thief anyway when he had come up to the room only to find the door closed. He had noticed – he would have had to have been blind in his own home not to – the sudden presence of a sleeve's worth of silky white material that had been ripped, with blood stains blossomed around the tear, now in his 'clinical waste – to be burned' bin. Kuroba must have been out of his mind to have thought that the piece of Kid's uniform would go unnoticed in this particular household. He wasn't usually that stupid.

So. He had come here to talk, except the door was closed, whereas it had usually been open before. _Something_, he thought, _about escape routes_. And there were. . . sounds of talking? Someone else in the room?

Despite himself, Saguru drew closer to the door in an effort to make out words.

". . . you sure you're alright?"

He started, instantly recognising the voice. Kudo Shinichi. And he sounded. . . worried?

"Stop fussing, you big idiot. I'm fine."

"But –"

"Nothing happened."

There was a short yet telling silence.

"Fine. Have it your way. Something happened. But it wasn't as big as you're making it. Barely hurts any more. See?"

"I'm well aware of just how fast it's started to _heal_, Kaito. My _problem_ is the fact that it happened at all!"

There was an anger in that voice. Guilty anger.

"Yeah, well. Next time, you'll make sure that doesn't happen."

And in that Saguru heard what had, if he was interpreting the conversation correctly, been missing so far. Anger, fear, and maybe a slight bit of accusation in the tone of Kuroba's voice.

"Next time!? There won't _be_ a next time if I have anything to do with it!"

Saguru, taken aback by the anger and denial in Kudo's voice, almost took a step back.

"That's your _problem_, Kudo!" Kaito bit back. "You keep running away from the fact that unless you face up to it and do something about it, you are going to let there be a second time. And a third. I hate to say this, but it's who you _are_ now." There was a pause, a sigh and a creak of the bed. Live with it," he finished, almost too quietly for him to hear.

"But I'm not-"

"None of us care."

"You don't like it."

"We don't have to. That's why I'm you're friend, remember? Big rooftop discussion? Ring any bells?"

"I'm dangerous."

Kaito laughed.

"I _knew_ I'd missed something out."

Saguru frowned, confused. Just how was the detective of the east more or less dangerous than any of the rest of them? It didn't make any sense.

For a while there were no sounds except the slight creak of a chair as Kudo sat down.

"I'm going to have to tell him."

"Huh? Tell him who?"

Another creak – Kudo had evidently stood up again.

"Hakuba."

Hakuba blinked.

"Wh-_What_?! Why – _ow_."

His breathing hitched in an unreasonable fit of panic. He was a detective. He had reacted in the normal manner the moment he had found something strange going on – in his own house, no less – and hadn't done anything wrong.

_Then why do I feel the need to get away from here, rather quickly?_

"Because," and Kudo's voice raised slightly for his benefit, "he's been listening to our entire conversation from outside your door."

With that the door opened to show Kaito already in bed, white duvets gathered up to his chest, where he was wearing an old T-shirt with the date of a magic convention. As suspected, most of his left forearm was bandaged up.

Kudo, now standing right in front of him and holding the door open, looked drawn and strangely defeated. He stepped aside.

"I think you'd better come inside."

Saguru did so, not straying too far from the door.

"I trust I didn't interrupt anything of great importance."

"Oh, no," said Kaito, shaking his head. "Nothing you wouldn't have gotten around to figuring out sooner or later."

"And is anyone ever going to tell me what I would somehow one day figure out and also apparently tore a rather long rip down Kuroba's sleeve a few hours ago?"

They both flinched.

"I, ah, oh hell. . ." Kuroba sighed. "Look, I think you'd better sit down. Oh, and keep an open mind.

A look of unimpressed nervous tension settled itself on the Brit's face. He crossed his arms.

"The last time you told me to 'keep an open mind' about something, you ended up telling me an unbelievable yet nevertheless true account of magical stones and secret mafia-type organisations. I hardly think that anything you have to say now could outstrip _that_."

Kaito gave a tired laugh, an eyebrow raised. Shinichi looked away or a moment.

"You willing to bet on that?"

Saguru thought on the matter. Swallowed, hard, and found somewhere to sit.

"Against you? No. Not really."

Shinichi snorted cynically, hands gravitating back to jacket pockets and expression distant.

"You're a detective, Hakuba-san. A good one. Which means. . . which means that you must have figured out by now that there are . . . some very important things about me that we haven't been completely honest with you about."

"Well, of course," the blond said, only starting to get the feeling that he was delving into waters well out of his depth. "I'm sure that if there was an award for mysteriousness in a detective, you would gain first prize."

Kaito snorted.

"I never meant it to be like this," the other detective in the room said. "I was going to be normal. Mostly normal. Then. . . well. You've got to have _some_ theories."

When you got down to it, yes, he did. Not that any of them would stand up to even the flakiest excuse, but they were there. _They're the kind of theories that would make Holmes and Doyle disown me as a detective_, more like, were his pragmatic thoughts on the matter.

"Imagine," Shinichi said, cutting into his musings, "hypothetically that is, that you don't have to worry about little things like something being impossible."

Saguru looked up at them sharply. He knew the dangers of the word 'hypothetically'.

"Then," he hypothesized carefully, "I would have to make mention of one Edogawa Conan. A young boy who, while in Japan, was a highly skilled detective for his age, with a . . . now _familiar_ . . . style of Sherlockian deduction."

He paused for effect, and the other two shared a telling Look. Obviously, he was on to something.

"A boy who disappeared just over two to three weeks ago. Coincidence or not, the exact time when you yourself reappeared. If I had left all reason behind me, I would almost say that the two of you were one and the same."

"Then I'd have to say that, unfortunately for me, you're almost there."

Saguru paled. Kaito didn't say anything, but looked like he was about to burst out laughing.

"There's more."  
Shinichi inclined his head but looked away. Forcing himself to think laterally and not attempt to explain or rationalise anything away, he continued.

"You've been acting strangely ever since you returned, at least to my knowledge. You have become more and more efficient at finding evidence to support your theories. For a while, you stopped including yourself in sports, even thought you are quite enthusiastic about football."

He hesitated.

"I know from experience that you're stronger and faster than you ever were before. Sometimes you will react reflexively to the most abstract of things. You overhear things you shouldn't be able to. And. . . you always seem to know where everyone is," he finished lamely.

Shinichi sighed.

"Well? You're the detective in this situation. What does that tell you?"

Saguru rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache coming on.

"I don't know. . ."

_That you're dangerous. That I shouldn't be here. That I don't _want_ to know._

Shinichi and Kaito shared a glance.

"Think you do, Hakuba."

_But I don't want to know!_

_(But Tantei-kun, how bright your eyes are -)_

Hakuba Saguru looked up. His throat was suddenly rather dry.

"I don't bite," Shinichi said. "Well," he added with a shiver, "I try not to."

---

For the first time in what seemed like absolutely forever, Nakamori Aoko woke up to the beautiful light of day and the sweet sounds of birdsong and teenage bickering.

For a while, she just lay there languidly. She was comfortable. If she squeezed her eyes shut, they still burned red on the inside of her eyelids with the light that was still there. Friendly light. When her eyes were open she could see where she was.

It was a room she had never been in before. Which instantly ruled out her own home, Kaito's place and Keiko's, the only places she had ever stayed over at. The walls were white, but not clinically so. Only precisely. There were bookshelves, with detective novels and classics in alphabetical order. There was a chair and a desk with a mirror, and the chair had a set of her clothes on it. Leaning against the wall next to the door was a mop. A very nice mop. One that just happened to be just the right length for her arms and with just the right weight, if she was any good judge of these things. Which she was. She was, as Kaito said, a master of what he had affectionately called 'mop-fu'.

Suddenly she sat straight up, overturning blue duvets.

_Kaito_.

Memory and understanding of where she was returned to her in chunks and pieces. She was at Hakuba-kun's. She had just been rescued from a group of people who really hated the Kaitou Kid – even more than she did – and wanted him dead, even. They had even thought that the Kid had been Kuroba Toichi. She had scoffed at them, at first out loud and then later not so loud, that Kuroba-ojisan hadn't been that kind of person, and anyway, he was dead now, wasn't he? Had been for nine and a half years.

They'd both been wrong.

_Oh, Kaito. . ._

_Do you trust me?_

_(Please, Aoko. I need you to trust me.)_

_Please?_

How could he have not hated her? She had hated Kid. She shook her head miserably. Who was she kidding? Her best friend had been lying to her for months and years and she hadn't even noticed and when it had been obvious, she had believed him, even though his excuses around her were near see-through, even though she knew him better than he thought. She had thought she had.

It wasn't _fair_.

From somewhere below her, someone could be heard yelling 'Idiot!' at someone else. Aoko nodded. It sure seemed a pretty good approximation of how she felt right now.

She dressed like an automaton, and not really knowing why, she took a hold of the mop before leaving the room.

She froze.

Right in front of her and on the opposite side of the corridor was the person she had just been thinking about. Kuroba Kaito, in the flesh, albeit with a white bandage around most of his left forearm that made her instantly start to worry over, because it hadn't been there last time she had seen. He was dressed already, though that wasn't saying much being that it was already halfway through the morning. In jeans with ripped knees and a black-and-white horizontally striped T-shirt, he looked almost normal. Asleep, he almost looked at peace.

Almost. The T-shirt made it look as though he were trying to make some kind of statement about prisons, and there was a sad and vulnerable frown on his face even at rest.

Kneeling down, she got to his eye level, watching him. Actually _looking_ at him for the first time in a very long while.

His eyes opened, startled violet-blue. Kid's eyes, Kaito's eyes. One and the same.

She scowled at him, and he cowered.

"I," she said menacingly, "have a mop. And you know what? I'm not afraid to use it."

She was going to say more, but the look of mischief returning to his face robbed her of those all-important words, and the flip of her skirt made her forget threats and simply whack.

All was back to normal in the world, and Aoko was happy.

---

That night, as the sun set, various people around various parts of the Hakuba mansion found their ways to the roof.

Shinichi and Ran talked quietly, but sometimes sounding put out with the other. Eventually they just watched the colours in the sky in silence, just like the others. For once, Hattori and Kazuha were quiet too, more interested in the general feel of the sunset than how much of an idiot the other had been – or how much of an idiot they themselves had been, even. Kaito and Aoko discussed things that had never been talked about before between them, and made each other promises that neither would keep secrets from the other any more so long as they could help it. Kaito still had several rapidly healing bruises from allowing his friend to get in a few hits that she definitely, really did, deserve to have reach their target. Hakuba and Koizumi also watched the sunset, further apart from each other than the others were, but still talking mostly civilly, about various topics. Vampires, magic and the basic occult often came up. So did science and detective work.

Over the entire scene, a shimmering glow of pearlescent pinkish-magenta watched over them, not spoiling the sunset, but somehow enhancing it.

They still had their problems to sort out, but they were problems of another time. Now was the time for other things.

Like red skies at night.

AN: And there you have it. It's finally here (after the four-day long breakdown) and The Vampire Detective is finished.

I originally planned to have an extra conversation between Shinichi and Ran, but it didn't fit. Hints as to what might have been said may turn up in other forms, though. And for those of you who want more -

Watch. This. Space.


End file.
